Three friends from Tooting are aiming to reach their £25,000 fundraising target today for their campaign to help families suffering from the recent tragedies in Palestine.
Eight restaurants – mainly in the Tooting area – have pledged to donate between 50% to 100% of their proceeds today.
This is part of the fundraiser’s campaign Play for Palestine to raise funds from a charity football tournament.
A spokesperson for the fundraiser said: “There is a massive buzz around today’s event as well as the tournament.
“It has got the whole community together.“
The campaign is partnered with charity Human Aid UK and is just under £250 from meeting its £25,000 target.
The spokesperson said: “It is looking likely we will go past our target with today’s event Come Dine for Palestine.
“We wanted to overachieve and we are very excited by it all.”
The friends decided to start the campaign in June when they saw the media coverage about the issues in Palestine.
Human Aid UK states there are currently 1.8million Palestinians in Gaza who need access to basic healthcare with medicine, equipment and electricity in short supply.
The spokesperson said: “We felt very helpless and thought there must be something we can do to help these people in need.
“It was coming up to the Euros and we play football every week.
“We thought one thing that unites the country is football.”
The tournament will kick off on 15th August and 32 teams will participate.
Each team has pledged to raise minimum of £700, but several teams have raised more than that.
Most teams are from the London area, while one team is coming from Leicester to support the event.
The eight restaurants involved in today’s event are Bubbles & Shakes, Fattwins Burgers, Kaspas Desserts, Lahore Karahi Tooting, Lahore-spices Tooting, Royal Mahal, Steakout Official and Wafflemeister UK.
You can follow the campaign on @playforpalestineuk.
