Business with a Heart
A Tale of Entrepreneurship, Compassion, and Community Impact
Photo by StreetLife Stories
This is the story of Robert, a man who woke up in the night sweating for change. Someone who follows their intuition and is balanced in their idea of personal financial stability alongside giving back and helping those in need.
Nearly 20 years ago, Robert looked to his dad for support due to his severe dyslexia – he borrowed £1000 for an oven and had to pay back weekly installments otherwise suffer the potential parental fury.
"People were wandering around looking for food…It was a really sad thing to see people desperately looking for food. Because no one was giving out food at all. Everything seemed to stop"
Humdingers, named after Robert’s grandfathers sailboat, originally a catering company for an array of occasions began the soup kitchen with 1 day a week, expanding to 4 days during the 2020 lockdown, reaching around 1000 people per day. Robert continued to explain that he felt let down by a number of organisations and authorities, and something needed to be done.
"I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat for I had to do this"
Robert deeply felt the call to make a change that literally came from the inside out meaning he found himself spending more time working on this than time with his family. He shared how he feels he let his wife down as he took it upon himself to support the whole rather than his family but Robert further explained how choosing to help others has brought so much joy into his life; from giving his wealth away to making new friends in the community and seeing people come out of their homes and creating connections. Robert also humbly mentioned that for his efforts he was awarded a British Empire Medal by the Queen. As he continued, I couldn’t help but think he is a live example of the law of reciprocity.
"I'd like to just show that a business can be very giving to the community at the same time as being a business"
I admire his honesty in telling me we can have it all. Anyone can have a business and find ways to give back. When expenses were high to keep the soup kitchen running and provide bread, his solution was to open an in-house bakery.
"the bakeries will work to make money to pay for the soup kitchen"
The soup kitchen brings in a mix of visitors; families, the homeless,(ex)addicts, lonely locals and individuals facing temporary hardship. Watching from the sidelines, it was clear that there is no discrimination of who lines up. Typically the majority of visitors are single older men with the ratio breaking down to around 20% homeless, 20% families and 50% mix of locals that are struggling with the cost of living, sitting in dark rooms all day, loneliness and 10% of addicts to ex addicts.
Humdingers have created a family with many of them. In fact, Robert welcomes anyone to drop by the head office and have a chat about any job opportunities. Looking for work can be intimidating as it is and Humdingers are open to walk-ins, giving a chance to those who don’t have the means to access technology, something that has now become a monotonous norm.
The team at Humdingers open their arms and hearts to give anyone a chance at building something for themselves. One of the chefs is Robert’s childhood best friend, a few of the employees are ex-addicts and a celebritie’s ex limo driver, who suffers with a mental health disorder, has never been happier working there.
Talking with Robert, there was a childlike innocence that came through; the side where everything is oh so simple:
"if every business did this, if every business said…actually, we aren't going to put this much into that or we are going to do our own little soup kitchen. Oh, look at these guys. Why don't we give them a job and see if we can give them a chance just through seeing what we're doing?"
Makes sense, no?
With the cost of living already bursting at the seams, we can only expect the numbers of homelessness to rise, getting stuck in an endless cycle and a broken system. Internships are offered to school leavers, imagine businesses worked with homeless charities to offer spaces to those who are trying to get back on their feet…
"At the same time as making a profit, we want to make a difference"
The Humdinger’s motto is ‘Business with a Heart’. You have the choice to listen to that little voice telling you how to make a difference even if it doesn’t make sense. Regardless of if you are a small business or CEO of a multinational bank – we can all find ways to have our cake and eat it.
Humdingers’ future involves expanding the business to continue helping local communities and the NHS. Robert also plans to tackle child hunger by providing free school meals for children.
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