Community kitchen in Beirut prepares hundreds of meals to be sent to schools sheltering displaced pe

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(24 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut, Lebanon - 24 September 2024
1. Various of volunteers preparing a large meal of lentil and rice before packing it into meal boxes
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Josephine Abou Abdo, one of the founders of Nation Station:
"Today, following the aggression that took place yesterday in all of Lebanon, we decided to take the initiative and distribute food for our brothers and sisters who were displaced from the South and all of Lebanon. We were able to find three schools that we are able to deliver to. We are preparing 400 to 500 meals. We are cooking in the morning, at noon, and at night. As much as possible. We have volunteers from across Lebanon from different walks of life who came here to help us."
3. Various of volunteers adding salad into the meal box
4. Close of food boxes
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Josephine Abou Abdo, one of the founders of Nation Station:
"We are trying to help in any way we can to ease the pain of people and tell them that ‘We are by your side. Whatever we need that we can help with, we are all in this together. Hopefully this will pass."
6. Various of volunteers packing food
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Josephine Abou Abdo, one of the founders of Nation Station:
"Our strength is in our unity. Truly today all of Lebanon is standing together. No one is thinking in the way the enemy is thinking that ‘there are people who are Hezbollah and people who are not Hezbollah. There are people who deserve help and others who don’t.’ We don’t think like that at all. When we started this initiative ‘Nation Station’ we thought that we all one. We all live in this country and this is our land. These are our olives and our trees. No one can attack them and no one can divide us."
8. Various of Abou Abdo sticking post notes to the meal boxes
9. Close up on note reading (Arabic): "You will return with your heads up high."
STORYLINE:
Volunteers set up a kitchen to cook meals for the displaced at an empty Beirut gas station that first became a hub for volunteers after the city’s devastating 2020 port explosion.

On Tuesday, about a dozen volunteers were preparing pots of lentils and rice for the popular Lebanese dish mudardara and chopping vegetables for salad.

Josephine Abou Abdo, one of the group's founders, said they planned to prepare 400 to 500 meals, which would then be distributed at schools housing the displaced.

"We are cooking in the morning, at noon, and at night, As much as possible," she said.

"We have volunteers from across Lebanon from different walks of life who came here to help us," she added.

The makeshift kitchen is in a Christian-majority neighborhood of Beirut where many are politically opposed to Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political party.

Many of those displaced by the Israeli bombardments are from the areas where Hezbollah has its main operations and base of support.

But Abou Abdo said those differences have disappeared - at least temporarily after seeing the "aggression that took place yesterday in all of Lebanon."

"Truly today all of Lebanon is standing together," she said.

"No one is thinking in the way the enemy is thinking, that there are people who are Hezbollah and people who are not Hezbollah, there are people who deserve help and others who don’t. We don’t think like that at all... We all live in this country and this is our land," she added.

AP video by Lujain Jo

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