Harehills ❤️ Love

Harehills is a community, and part of that community is our fantastic array of shops and businesses, and by no means are all of them saints, but many are generous. They provide jobs, are convenient sources of sustenance, and other shopping needs, but they can also be heavily involved in community events, sources of charity, and drivers in generosity themselves.

The Delicious Dishes Reverse Advent Calendar mentioned below finishes on the 22nd – so there’s still time to get to the cafe and give if you are able.

This is an inexhaustive list of charitable acts by local shops, it’s just what I’ve seen – I would encourage anyone who has seen more to share their stories of our shops acting generously, reply on Twitter, on Facebook, or in the comments here. This advent calendar entry can grow!

Morrisons Harehills

All year long, really all pandemic long, I’ve been hearing about Morrison’s donating food, both end of life products and fresh produce. Now to be clear, I’ve also heard about all the major supermarkets donating food at some point, but Morrisons is mentioned and thanked frequently enough that I wanted to give them top billing.

This is an inexhaustive list of places I’ve heard them donating to, in Harehills:

• St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School – donating paper bags for life to aid in distributing food the school had collected
• Co-op Academy Woodlands – donating fruit for reception, which they turned into smoothies
• Anchor – Berkeley Court care home – donating goods to allow the care home’s resident shop, Berkeley Bargains, to re-open
• They have also frequently donated food to Catch Leeds food bus, St Aidan’s food share, Bankside Children’s Centre and recently they provided the mince pies to the Harehills Winter Welcome.

This is the tip of the iceberg of the Community spirit that our local Harehills supermarket – you can find out more about their efforts on their Morrisons Harehills Community Facebook page

Delicious Dishes

I’m a long time fan of Delicious Dishes, they do some amazing breakfast wraps, amazing cakes and buns, and soul food boxes. They’ve also for the past four years been running a reverse advent calendar, where people come in and donate items of food or other household goods. These then get put towards hampers to be donated out to those in need.

It started off as a staff initiative and rolled out to the customers becoming an annual tradition that is going on today. If you get a chance, pop up in for a sarnie, and drop off a spare something or other that could genuinely help someone.

You can find out more at their Facebook page, or at their cafe at 10 Strathmore Dr, Harehills, Leeds LS9 6AB

Maureen’s Caribbean Kitchen

We’ve already covered the titular Maureen herself, but as a business that has supported people in the community throughout the pandemic, providing food for emergency workers and front line staff.

You can check out the advent calendar entry about Maureen here, and you can find Maureen’s Caribbean Kitchen at their (gorgeous looking) website, Facebook and Twitter – you can find the shop itself at 105 Roundhay Road, Harehills

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so shout out other businesses in and around Harehills that have shown tremendous community spirit

You can find all the released Advent Posts here: Harehills Good News Advent Calendar 2021