These women are delivering free hot meals to people in need in Eastbourne, Seaford, and Brighton

Kerry Brennan and Nisha Flowers, both 34, wanted to do something positive for the community as the coronavirus outbreak puts pressure on food banks and forces elderly people to isolate at home.

Today (March 23) the pair have rented out a village hall and cooked 68 meals which they will be delivering for people across East Sussex.

“With all this chaos and panic it feels nice to have something positive to do,” said Kerry, “I needed to help.

“There’s people in the community that are very disadvantaged.”

After putting out a social media appeal, Kerry said a GP contacted them and asked them to help vulnerable patients who can’t get out the house and don’t have a family to help them.

But also among the people they are helping included one mother with two children who hadn’t eaten in days.

“She had fed her children but was really hungry,” Kerry said, “There was also a pregnant lady who hasn’t got anything.

“It’s really quite shocking to be honest. I thought it would just be elderly people in need.”

They will be making their deliveries wearing gloves and masks and will be keeping a distance.

The meals, like chicken stew with mash and vegetables, are made with fresh local ingredients.

Kerry said, “The problem is that the government has announced stuff like an extra thousand pounds to Universal Credit a year.

“They have said they are going to put free school meals into vouchers. But that’s going to take a while to implement. These people need it now.

“The food banks are running extremely low, the shops are empty.”

The mum-of-three said, “If communities don’t pull together people are going to suffer.

“They may not be understanding the government advice and there’s panic, leading to panic buying.

“People are spending all their benefits in a week on buying stuff. That’s what’s caused this problem.”

Nisha was first inspired when she went to the pub last week and met an 82-year-old veteran who hadn’t had a hot meal in four days.

She persuaded the pub to donate some ingredients and cooked up 40 meals for people in need to come and collect.

That’s when Kerry decided to team up with her.

They gathered £100 worth of donations, bought a bunch of ingredients, and hired out Berwick Village Hall to cook.