Selsey Romanain Orphan Appeal - Registered Charity

"When you think that for the price we pay for a Cheese burger you can feed a child for a week, something must be wrong "

"The first time we saw the conditions the children were in, it brought us all to tears"

In 1998 we were first asked if we would consider supporting a "Street Kitchen" in the town of Alba Iulia. There was a small kitchen already in operation but it was a ramshackle under funded operation held together only by the dedication of the wonderful staff and director. The kitchen was serving between twenty and thirty meals every day depending on funding. We knew that this would be a difficult and large project for us to undertake but the need for such a kitchen was blatantly obvious to us all. In Alba Iulia we began dialogue with the Mayor's office about the work we proposed whilst at home we began to source the catering equipment that we would need. In July 1999 a full project was presented to the Alba Authorities and we were given the full go ahead.

From that minute we knew that we had we had a great deal of work to do if we were to install it in September of that year. Our project proposal was that we would install a large scale commercial kitchen adhering to all British and European standards. We received a tremendous amount of support from many local British companies with donations of equipment and building materials. The new kitchen would be capable of serving at least 500 meals a day subject to funding.

We arrived in mid September, ten of us and a large amount of equipment that we had sent out ahead of us. We now had ten days to take an empty room with no gas, electric, water or drains and turn it into a complete functioning kitchen. Only one of us had actually seen the building prior to arrival and all the planning had been done by our workers from photographs and thumbnail sketches. Things were going well and by day four we were well over half way through. It was then arranged that the British Ambassador, Mr. Richard Ralph would come to Alba Iulia and open our "Street Kitchen" project but it had to be on the morning of day six. We worked late into the night on day four and day five and we managed to have everything (nearly!) ready for 9am that morning. The kitchen was opened jointly by the Vice Mayor of Alba Iulia and the British Ambassador and was deemed a success by all present.

The director of the kitchen, Mr Trutsa, and all his wonderful staff have continued their hard work and now with additional funding from S.R.O.A. sponsors and the Romanian Authorities, the kitchen is now serving almost two hundred meals every day, and we continue to seek additional funding so we may still increase the number of meals being served up to the full potential of the equipment installed. We also have other plans for the building next door to the kitchen which we are currently investigating.

The Vice Mayor of Alba Iulia,
Paul Voicu (right) and The British
Ambassador, Richard Ralph
opening the kitchen.