CONTROLLED Christmas cheer is on the cards as Khidmat Centre once again provides at-home meals for the elderly on Christmas day.

The Khidmat Centre has made the tough decision to provide an at-home service again for their 11th year, after reports of the winter flu as well as covid doing the rounds.

The centre provides a quality at home-delivery service where volunteers deliver the food, sing a carol and make doorstep conversation.

Sofia Buncy, national co-ordinator at the Khidmat Centre, said: “After my own personal experience of the winter flu this year as well as some of my colleagues, we’ve made the tough decision to make the Christmas dinner a delivery service again.

“We were thinking of getting the elderly back in the centre to celebrate together but with the winter flu being more potent this year and covid still being around, we don’t want to risk anything, especially when the NHS are so understaffed and under so much pressure between Christmas and new year.”

Volunteers give up their Christmas day to deliver food parcels and help make elderly people’s day better.

“It’s a huge sacrifice to make, to give up your time on a day when everyone wants to spend time with their family and loved ones.

“Volunteers come dressed up in their jumpers and elf outfits and we go out and deliver about 50 Christmas meals.

“It’s a big operation, we have parcels delivered to central Bradford, all the way out to Keighley and Ilkley.

“We know a lot of elderly people are suffering from social isolation, so we make sure the volunteers don’t just drop the food off, but they sing a carol and if their singing voice isn’t up to scratch, they have a friendly chat.”

Khidmat Centre also provides hampers to Christian refugee families in the area, days before Christmas to support them and help them through the winter.

“We provide hampers to local organisations which specialise in working with refugees who distribute the parcels.

“We’ve had more people reach out to us and it just shows how the belt is tightening for everyone and it’s impacting the most vulnerable in our society.

“The Christmas spirit is about giving and sometimes it becomes commercialised and it’s all about presents but it’s about giving back and supporting the people in our communities.”

The Christmas meal is in partnership with MyLahore and JW Young.

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