Damian Lewis is set to receive a gong in the Queen’s Birthday Honours this week for his FeedNHS, the NHS charity project that he developed and worked on along with Helen McCrory. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Damian and Helen helped raise £1.5 million to feed NSH staff during the CoVid-19 pandemic, which allowed 40,000 meals a day to be served to 100 hospitals.
Helen McCrory CREDIT: Andrew Crowley /Telegraph
In the last year, Helen McCrory became a close colleague as we worked alongside her, her husband, Damian Lewis, and actor Matt Lucas on the #FeedNHS campaign. At the height of the first lockdown we spoke nearly every day and served over a million meals to NHS workers on the frontline.
On Friday afternoon, I was in my office when I heard the news.
My immediate thought was, no, they’ve got that wrong. People must have confused her with someone else. Just the day before, I had been writing about Helen, Damian and Matt, for Letters From Lockdown, a compilation of notes to two children about people’s lives in the past year. How could it be that she had passed away? I was shocked.
I didn’t know Helen was ill. I don’t know how long she was receiving treatment, nor what type of cancer she had. Part of me wondered if I should have known, if other people knew and I didn’t. Was there something I missed?
by PRWeek UK Staff | PR Week | October 28, 2020
Nominated: Best Ethical or Good Cause Initiative During the Coronavirus Crisis
Nominated and Won: Best Proactive Communications During the Coronavirus Crisis
Judge’s comment:
Brilliant campaign, well executed with passion.
And the winner is, FeedNHS! This campaign aimed to raise £1m to get hot, healthy meals to frontline NHS staff during the coronavirus crisis, as many struggled to get them amid lockdown closures. It was set up by Leon Restaurants co-founder and chief executive John Vincent, actors Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory, and actor and comedian Matt Lucas.
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | May 16, 2020
FeedNHS is expanding its fundraising efforts from £1M to £2M. So far, £1,239,800 (*updated June 12) has been raised of the £2,000,000 target (61%). Just launched on March 27, it took the coalition only 10 days to raise the first £1M. And now they want to do it again in order to expand nationwide.
For more information, visit their FeedNHS website here and to donate, please visit the JustGiving campaign here. Here is a recent story Damian and Helen shared online:
“Hi, we’ve been raising as much money as we can to help feed NHS workers one healthy meal each day. We started in the hardest hit London hospitals and with the help of our coalition partners we’ve now taken it nationwide.
We had a target to raise 1 million pounds for our scheme and thanks to the public’s overwhelming generosity we’ve raised it. Thank you! But as more hospitals have heard about what we’re doing it’s become clear that we mustn’t stop. So our aim now is to raise 2 million (in total ) which will enable us to feed even more hospital workers across the nation. So if you can, and we know not everyone can, please donate. With you, we know we can make up the difference.
We’re Damian and Helen and like all the best things in life, this started with a chat to a friend.”
by Gingersnap4Helen | helen-mccrory.com | April 9, 2020
Every day, Adam Fleming, Laura Kuenssberg, Fergus Walsh and Chris Mason bring us the latest on the coronavirus pandemic in the UK via the The Coronavirus Newscast. They discuss the latest public health information and how it is affecting our lives. On Thursday, April 9, 2020 Helen and Damian were guests on the podcast to share with listeners about their #FeedNHS campaign and their efforts to feed frontline heroes and hospital staff.
Listen here at about 21:30 in.
Here are some soundbites and highlights in transcription form:
Continue reading Helen and Damian Discuss FeedNHS Efforts on The Coronavirus Newscast