Theresa Panton, with the help of church volunteers, opened a soup kitchen for the homeless for the first time on Friday evening. Although it was “very, very quiet”, she’s determined to keep it going.

“We only had one customer, but that was inevitable considering the soup kitchen has only just opened,” she said. “Everything takes a little while to take off so hopefully it will be better this week.

“I don’t give up at the first hurdle,” she added.

Theresa, of Ely, set up the soup kitchen because it is something that she’d been thinking about for a long time.

“I don’t think there are any other provisions of that sort for the homeless people in Ely,” she said.

“It’s only one meal a week but hopefully it will help people a little bit.”

The free to use soup kitchen, at Olive Tree Fellowship in Silver Street, is staffed by volunteers from several different churches and will be open every Friday evening from 6 to 8pm until the end of March.

The soup kitchen will open again this Friday evening.