Amy Foster

Amy – aka Aunty Bee, the Bee Lady, or Amazing Amy – is the woman and the force behind Bee Mission.

Amy started out working in care, both in care homes and in people’s homes. Through connections in the care world, Amy found out about Chris and his project to cook for people experiencing homelessness and she volunteered to help.

Amy began cooking, and it wasn’t long before Chris asked if she could help out in a more permanent way. Chris was looking for a right hand, and he’d found the perfect person in Amy.

Amy started to work part-time for Chris on a permanent basis, she helped out with admin as well as with the cooking, and pretty soon became indispensable, and the very heart of Bee Mission.

During lockdown, when hardly any other charities were able to continue supporting people experiencing homelessness, Amy and her volunteers still cooked 50 meals every night and delivered them to people living on the streets or to the hotels in Bournemouth where they’d been temporarily housed. During this time, Amy also managed the rehoming of a few couples into private temporary accommodation organised by herself and Chris.

Today, Amy coordinates a team of volunteers to prep, cook, and deliver hot meals to people living on the streets of Bournemouth three times a week which equates to a staggering 31,200 meals per year!

Amy cooks the majority of the meals from her home kitchen, but once a week, she cooks in the kitchen at Vale Lodge Care Home in Boscombe where she also cooks an additional 10 meals for the residents who live there. This encourages the residents to meet in the communal area and eat together providing important socialising time. And for the residents that are unable to leave their rooms due to poor health, Amy and her volunteers deliver the food to their rooms so they don’t miss out.

Amy and her team support a variety of people, some of whom have alcohol and drug addictions and haven’t eaten a substantial meal in days, so Amy knows how important it is that the meals they prepare and deliver are healthy dinners full of vegetables, protein and carbohydrates to help improve the health of those they look after.

As well as food, Amy also keeps the Bee Mission delivery van stocked with donated clothes and toiletries, dog food, and essentials such as tents and sleeping bags. Amy is a crucial point of regular contact for people living on the streets in the town centre; they trust her, and let her know if they need anything or if they’re in any trouble. Amy can then signpost them to appropriate services or come back the next time with whatever they needed – a new mobile handset for example.

Amy also organises the other side of Bee Mission, the bee side. Co-ordinating a team of beekeepers, builders, and volunteers, Amy makes sure that the beehives are placed in good homes, are well looked after, and that the honey is collected.

Once Amy has the honey, she processes, packs, labels, and sells the honey with every penny of profit going straight back into Bee Mission. A one-woman power house on a mission to help as many people and bees as possible, it couldn’t be done without her!