OUR STORY
We are Cissy & Kirstie, founders of Gma’s
Thank you for visiting our website and showing interest in our work!
We met volunteering with Care4Calais and working with local asylum seekers in South London. We quickly saw the levels of social need within this community and we launched Gma’s to provide a solution to social isolation and lack of nutrition amongst those we had met.
Our long term goal is to foster empathy and understanding of those seeking asylum and to provide social integration for this community, that is necessary in rebuilding their lives here in the UK. Through our integrated community moments’, we are able to drive sense of both belonging and contribution amongst those we support.
Gma is Kirstie’s Grandma, who she lives with in South London - a certified Brixton OG, hailing from the West Indies.
Her Guyanese culture of playfulness, joy and generosity underpins our brand values and whose delicious family recipes have filled hearts and bellies for generations. so delicious in-fact that Kirstie’s friends would often say “I’d pay for your Grandma’s food!”... We put that theory to the test during our first public fundraising moments in 2021, coining the classic Curry Goat Rotito at our iconic Roti Run fundraising events hosted at Bodega Ritas, Farringdon… Funds raised were used to cook and deliver hot food to the the local asylum we support - made possible by the generosity of our wider community
…And the concept of
You Eat, We Eat, Everyone Eats.
You Eat, We Eat, Everyone Eats.
✨You Eat, We Eat, Everyone Eats✨
the belief that the world does not need to be a binary space of those with and those without… but can be a revolving cycle of us.
Gma's Comfort Meals
Most of our work has centred asylum seekers and refugees as we have connected further, with other local community spaces and food banks - we can see the drastic effects of the cost of living crisis with more people suffering with food insecurity than ever before. Communities who are already vulnerable are now struck with increased anxiety around eating well and eating enough.
This Winter, Gma's piloted a new programme, "Comfort Meals” that took the pressure off of dinner time for those suffering from food insecurity by providing free regular access to healthy & nutritious food in the form of free ready meal boxes, made with love by our community and free to takeaway
💸£4538 raised
💝720 Comfort Meals meals cooked
🫑300+ vegetables chopped
📦120 Comfort Boxes shared with those in need
🤝82 supporters who donated
📍10+ local orgs supported
👫8 volunteers
🍕3 pizza & dance breaks
🚐2 zip vans
💡1 big idea
✨You Eat, We Eat, Everyone Eats✨
