For Hong Kong charity Feeding Hong Kong, 2020 brought great challenges and generosity
As a child in Britain, Gabrielle Kirstein volunteered with her family. It instilled in her a desire to give back that inspired her to set up the food bank Feeding Hong Kong
What’s the story? My family is Irish. My dad is from Cork and in his early 20s he went to Manchester with the Legion of Mary (Catholic volunteer association) to help out in a hostel. He met my mum, who is from Manchester, through the Legion of Mary. They fell in love and never left.
My dad was a bricklayer and, later, a builder. I was born in 1979 and grew up in Burnage, south Manchester, which is best known as the childhood home of the Oasis brothers, Liam and Noel Gallagher. My mum was a primary school teacher and my younger brother, Francis, and older brother, Danian, and I went to the school where she taught, St Bernard’s Primary School. We went on to Barlow High School. It was also the school where the Gallagher brothers had gone.
When we were at school, Oasis were huge. The guys all had the Oasis haircut and when we went on school trips everyone would be singing the songs. Because the Oasis brothers had grown up in the area, everyone had a connection. One of my cousins dated Liam. I’m from an Irish family and have 50-odd first cousins.
Happy family: My parents worked really hard. My dad would be out of the house at 7am to work on a building site. My mum taught full time and after she’d put us to bed would sit up and do her marking. My parents were very committed to church, they went every day and still do.
On Saturday afternoons, dad would take us kids down to the hostel to help get dinner ready. For us kids that meant scrubbing potatoes. Every Christmas Day, we’d go to the hostel before we had our own Christmas lunch. Giving back, the idea of serving, was always part of our life. A lot of what we did was with family. My mum was the youngest of seven and there were always cousins around or we’d spend time with aunties.