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This Hong Kong kitchen serves 2,200 free meals a week to those who need help – and it’s been a long time coming, founder says

The Kind Kitchen, an initiative by NGO ImpactHK, serves the homeless, street cleaners, the elderly in need of food support, ethnic minorities and refugees

ImpactHK founder Jeff Rotmeyer says he has dreamt of opening something like this for a long time and it is ‘beautiful to watch’ staff take pride in it

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Eppie Yip works at The Kind Kitchen, an initiative by NGO ImpactHK. It serves 2,200 free meals per week, all year round, to needy Hongkongers. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 6:15pm, 6 May 2022Updated: 6:36pm, 6 May 2022

It’s 9am on a humid Monday morning and The Kind Kitchen’s roller shutter, covered in colourful street art, slowly winds its way up.

One of the first through the door is Eppie Yip Yuen-man. She’s excited to get to work in the kitchen, the latest initiative by ImpactHK, an NGO that helps the city’s homeless and those experiencing food insecurity.

Located in Tai Kok Tsui – where ImpactHK also operates a community centre – in Kowloon, the kitchen serves 2,200 free meals per week, all year round. It also creates jobs and empowers those who have experienced homelessness.

For Yip, a mother of two who shares a flat with three other women in a shelter, working in the kitchen (which opened in April) allows her to save money to live independently in future.

“I get on-the-job training and make a salary,” says Yip, 58, who wears a T-shirt bearing the slogan #kindnessmatters, the NGO’s motto. “One day, I want to rent a flat for myself.”

Cindy Tse holds up a jar of fish oil she made for The Kind Kitchen in Tai Kok Tsui. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Cindy Tse also works in the kitchen. A few years ago, a combination of personal issues and health problems – at one stage, she struggled to walk, breathe and had a blood pressure level of over 200 – led to her living on the streets for six months. Today, the 48-year-old is one of four former homeless people working in the kitchen, carrying out duties ranging from cleaning to preparing food.