Every day the Love All, Serve All Soup kitchen cooks and dis­trib­utes hot meals to the home­less in Port-of-Spain.

But when this char­i­ta­ble ini­tia­tive start­ed it was not sup­posed to last so long.

“The pa­tron of the build­ing want­ed to do a Se­wa for two weeks to cel­e­brate Sai Ba­ba’s birth­day,” said Na­hous.

That two weeks turned in­to two years and count­ing of serv­ing.

“Af­ter the first year I think we re­alised that this was not stop­ping,” said Na­hous.

Paul Na­hous who is one of the main vol­un­teers at the kitchen said they don’t col­lect any mon­e­tary fund­ing, there­fore all do­na­tions have to be made through food items.

“We run on bags of rice, veg­eta­bles and bot­tles of wa­ter,” said Na­hous.

Al­so, all the food cooked at the Soup Kitchen is veg­e­tar­i­an as Na­hous said the kitchen doesn’t want to of­fend any­one’s re­li­gion.

“Our de­fault, we go to rice and lentils, but we spice it up a bit be­cause home­less peo­ple are peo­ple too,” said Na­hous.

Any­one can vol­un­teer at the kitchen and spe­cif­ic days are al­so giv­en when re­quest­ed. For ex­am­ple, a team can take every Tues­day for the month of Oc­to­ber.

“You book a night, you come with your team and do the cook­ing”, said Na­hous.

Then some­one re­ferred to as “reg­u­lar” will show vol­un­teers the ar­eas where peo­ple are most in need.

Reg­u­lars are those who show up to help cook and dis­trib­ute when vol­un­teers fall short.

It was qui­et on the night Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed on­ly some of the reg­u­lars were there.

One such reg­u­lar is Mr Tony.

Mr Tony is a for­mer home­less man, who start­ed com­ing to the soup kitchen for a dai­ly meal. He then start­ed to ask to as­sist with cook­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing meals for the home­less.

“Mr Tony lived that life, he was on the street,” said Na­hous.

The build­ing where the soup kitchen is lo­cat­ed need­ed a care­tak­er and Mr Tony was giv­en the job.

“Mr Tony is part of the fam­i­ly, any­time there is a short­fall in terms of the cook­ing he will pick up that slack, he’s re­al­ly a bless­ing,” said Na­hous.

Now the dis­tri­b­u­tion of meals in the cap­i­tal city is not al­ways easy or safe and ac­cord­ing to Na­hous mem­bers of his team were at­tacked be­fore.

“We had peo­ple who were be­com­ing very ag­gres­sive with us, they felt like they could strong-arm us to give them more,” said Na­hous.

An­oth­er chal­lenge for Na­hous and his team is dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing be­tween those in need and those who are just pre­tend­ing.

But amid the dif­fi­cul­ties, fa­mil­iar­i­ty grew.

“There is a guy on George Street with no legs and he looks out for us and wheels his chair in the road to greet us for the food,” said Na­hous.

And the grat­i­tude from the home­less to mem­bers of the soup kitchen made their ef­forts worth-while.

“Some­one who was new­ly home­less said to me, boss I don’t know how I was eat­ing tonight, thank you”, said Na­hous.

The Love All Serve All Soup Kitchen wants every­one in need of a meal in the Cap­i­tal City to look out for them each and every night.

“This is a mes­sage to any­one who needs a meal the Li­brary is a con­cen­tra­tion, we al­so go street by street,” said Na­hous.

“We do this out of love.”