A charity project that has fed hundreds of homeless people in Bradford since it was launched earlier this year is expanding to Keighley.

The Intouch Foundation started serving food out of a mobile kitchen near Bradford City Hall on New Year’s Eve, and has served thousands of hot meals since.

Because of its success, the charity will now park up its kitchen in Keighley once a week, offering hot meals and drinks to the homeless and those on low incomes.

The food is bought thanks to donations from local businesses and prepared by a catering company before being distributed by volunteers.

The first event in Keighley will be next Wednesday, with the kitchen parked in Church Green between 8pm and 9pm. It will return there every Wednesday evening and organisers hope word will soon spread among the town’s most vulnerable residents.

In the 12 weeks it has been running in Bradford, volunteers have served around 1,300 hot meals and 4,000 hot drinks. As well as providing food, volunteers also offer advice on various organisations, such as drug and council services.

The Keighley project will be run by volunteer Khurm Mehzar.

Osman Gondal, CEO and founder of Intouch, said: “We have had absolutely amazing responses from businesses wanting to sponsor us so far. We do this two days a week in Bradford.

“We already have the trailer, so we want to make the most of it on the other days of the week. We also have plans to have nights in Leeds and Halifax. In Bradford, we have been serving about 80 to 100 meals a night.

“We’re not just serving food, we also offer a listening ear and can link people up with other organisations. We tend to stay in one specific location, then people know where we are and where to come back to.

“It is not just for homeless people, there are a lot of people on the poverty line and things can be very difficult for them. When we first started we were getting 40 to 50 people a night, now there are around 100 every night after word spread. The volunteers do it because they believe it is a service that is really needed.”

He said the next stage of the project was to create foodbanks in mosques across the district and they hope to have the first up and running by June.

To volunteer or for details, visit intouchfoundation.co.uk