87-year-old receives Pride of Britain award after feeding 60,000 homeless people

For quarter of a century, Icolyn Smith MBE has been feeding Oxford’s most vulnerable people.

Since opening Oxford Soup Kitchen, she has served more than 45,000 hot meals to the city’s homeless and is still the driving force behind the community lifeline after nearly 30 years.

The 87-year-old, known affectionately as ‘Ma’, has received a Pride of Britain award for her inspirational work and hailed a ‘hero’ by those whose lives she has saved.

She said: “I can’t save the world, I can’t save everybody, but I can do something to help someone.”

Icolyn was inspired to start the soup kitchen in 1989 when she saw a man rummaging through bins for food on her way home from work.

Witnessing such desperation “sparked something” in the mum-of-five and, in that moment, the idea of Oxford Community Soup Kitchen was created.

Her 51-year-old son, Gary, says his mum’s altruistic roots stretch back to her childhood growing up in rural Jamaica.

“It started when she was a little girl. She would cook for her teachers and different families in the village” he revealed. “And after she moved to the UK in 1965 and settled in Oxford, she continued to help other families. Even when I was going to school, I’d come home and there’d be someone in the kitchen. It would be someone that needed feeding or needed help.”

A shoulder to lean on

He added: “For as long as I can remember she’s looked after people. She’s very selfless and would do anything for anyone. It brings people together and gives those without a home or in need of care things that we take for granted – like someone to talk to and a shoulder to lean on.”

Oxford Soup Kitchen is open twice a week all-year-round and provides three-course meals for members of the community, as well as handing out essentials for the homeless, such as sleeping bags, shoes and clothing.

“The first week a few people came in, the week after it was 60 and the week after it was a hundred – and it just increased,” says Gary, who volunteers every week alongside his mum.

“We’ve had people who were ready to commit suicide come here and it’s changed their lives. It’s our job to keep them alive and to make sure they have somewhere to go and someone to talk to, so they can live a normal life just like any one of us.”

At first, Icolyn faced a constant struggle to keep the kitchen open. Individuals, churches and local businesses made donations, and in 2013, the initiative became a charity called the Icolyn Smith Foundation.

While most people her age enjoy putting their feet up, Icolyn has no plans to retire.

To her, seeing people turn their lives around and making something of themselves is what keeps her going.

“They mean so much to me,” she said. “I care about them, I love them. I hug them and they hug me. I see them as my children. They need comfort, they need love.

“What more do you want out of life?”