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Homeless truck driver Colin Killen looked up from his steaming plate of potato, cheese and onion bake and said: “You wanna know what this hot lunch means to me?”

“See that,” he said, pointing to Bruce Castle Park over the road from the north London pub where we were sitting.

“I was living in that park all of January. I slept on that park bench. I had been evicted and made homeless and I was terrified, freezing and hungry. But more than the hunger, it’s the loneliness that kills you.”

His voice went quiet. “It takes your soul away. So this meal with all these lovely people around us, it’s about much more than food. It’s a soul saver.”

Colin, 46, was talking in the Antwerp Arms, which is down the road from Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane stadium and looks like a regular football pub.

Around him, 25 homeless people, drug addicts and people suffering from isolation or mental health issues were tucking into a delicious free lunch prepared by volunteer community cooks using fresh surplus food from a local supermarket.

The lunch is organised by the Antwerp Arms Association, a society for community benefit founded four years ago when 360 local people came together to buy shares and save this 135-year-old pub from developers.

In 2015, the Antwerp Arms became north London’s first community-owned pub, and since last summer the group has been running fortnightly hot meals for up to 40 socially excluded people in Tottenham’s Northumberland Park ward, one of the most deprived areas in England.

Today the Antwerp Arms Association has been awarded £6,000 from the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund as part of our Food for London campaign.

The grant will be used to train 30 volunteer cooks and to double the frequency of the lunches to one a week. It is one of 29 grants announced today in our £358,500 programme to back grassroots groups using surplus food to tackle food poverty in the capital.

Ashley Burrows, 56, one of the driving forces behind the community-owned pub, said: “The pub is empty during the day so we thought, why not use it to help vulnerable people in the community?

“We didn’t want to run the usual soup kitchen with plastic plates and cutlery but rather to serve a high quality cooked meal to people sitting at tables and to make them feel extra-special.

“We started it last summer and this grant from the Dispossessed Fund will make what we do sustainable.”

Ashley, a mother of four and the arts co-ordinator at a local school, recalled walking her dog in Bruce Castle Park in 2013 and noticing that her favourite pub was up for sale.

“My neighbour and I decided to call a public meeting at a nearby school,” she said.

“About 80 people turned up and I asked them: ‘Who wants to save the pub?’ Everyone’s hand went up. Then I said, almost rashly: ‘Who wants to buy the pub?’ Again, every hand shot up. I thought, gosh, that’s the rest of my life gone!”

Ashley and her neighbours, among them lawyers, accountants and social media experts, raised £150,000 from 360 locals.

The majority invested between £50 and £500, with a few, like Ashley, investing more — but on the proviso that each shareholder got one vote regardless of the number of shares they own.

They went on to secure a £285,000 government grant from the Social Investment Bank and triumphantly purchased the freehold in 2015 with the aim of fostering community cohesion.

They have been particularly adept at forming charitable partnerships. The lunch is organised with Crutch Haringey, a Big Lottery Fund project of Citizens Advice Haringey, who invite vulnerable people and use the lunch to offer their advice services.

The surplus food is free from the local Sainsbury’s. On the day I visited, volunteer Martin Laheen, 67, had picked up boxes of bananas that the two volunteer cooks, Caroline Marshman, 64, and Ginny Steer, 55, were conjuring into fritters and banana custard.

One guest, Diane, 52, a recovering drug addict, sat and talked to Colin about his ordeal in the park. “I am still homeless,” he said, “but I no longer sleep rough because Haringey referred me to the winter shelter church programme which means I go to a different church to sleep every night.”

Colin, who grew up in care, said he became homeless when he lost his privately rented studio flat and also his job as a HGV refuse-truck driver.

“I was on a zero-hours contract and three-quarters of my income went on my monthly rent of £950, so when I was evicted I didn’t have the savings to afford a deposit as well as a first month’s rent. Many people like me live on the edge and are a couple of wage packets away from being homeless.”

He hopes to be re-housed by the council and re-employed as a driver soon. “Meantime this is where I come to feel normal,” he said. “It’s the one place I can come for a warm welcome and where I am not judged.”

For a while Colin was silent as he devoured his dessert of chocolate brownie, sliced banana and crème fraîche. When he looked up his plate was spotless. “We’re eating like rock stars, I’m off for seconds,” he announced.

Ashley smiled. “This is what we do. As a community pub, we take care of what’s on our doorstep. Person by person, we can make London stronger.”

The Antwerp Arms Association

What they do: Founded in 2013 by 360 local people who chipped in to save it from developers, this community pub provides a fortnightly meal using surplus food to people who are homeless, elderly or suffer addiction or mental health issues.

Where: Haringey

Grant: £6,000 to train 30 volunteers in food hygiene and to prepare a hot meal for up to 40 vulnerable people a week, and to buy more kitchen equipment.

The Shadwell Community

What they do: Established in 2003, this charity runs an adventure playground that serves a community living with poverty and disadvantage.

Where: Tower Hamlets

Grant: £19,485 to increase surplus food collection and provision to more than 100 isolated people a week by extending the hours and capacity of the community kitchen.

Notre Dame Refugee Centre

What they do: Set up as a charity in 2007, they support asylum seekers and refugees by offering English language classes, hot meals and advice on housing, debt, benefits and social services.

Where: Westminster

Grant: £19,485 to increase surplus food collection and provision to more than 100 isolated people a week by extending the hours and capacity of the community kitchen.

The £358,500 grants programme was funded by Citi banking group, D&D London restaurant group and the Dispossessed Fund.