Birthday Honours 2021: Woman receives BEM for lockdown meal service

Molly Bufton Stear also received the prime minister's Points of Light award earlier this year

A woman has received a BEM in the Queen's Birthday Honours after launching a lockdown meal delivery service during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Molly Bufton Stear, 23, created Molly's Meals to take food to older people who were unable to leave their homes during the first lockdown in 2020.

It delivered 2,500 meals during that time, with a team continuing to provide up to 20 a day.

Miss Bufton Stear said it was "surreal" to receive the honour.

The pandemic began shortly after she had returned from a period volunteering in Zanzibar, Tanzania, where she helped young people develop employment skills.

"When I was growing up I spent every free moment, every holiday, weekend with my grandparents and I thought... if my Grandad had been on his own he would not be able to cook for himself, he wouldn't be able to do his own shopping.

"I felt so worried when I thought of all the old people who would be on their own.

"I put a post on Facebook saying I would cook and deliver free hot meals to anyone who needed it and it picked up from there."

Miss Bufton Stear believes Molly's Meals has now made and delivered 10,000 meals in total over the past 15 months

A local Lions Club International group donated a fridge freezer.

Food, Miss Bufton Stear said, came in from restaurants that had been forced to close and people's allotments and soon others in the community were getting involved.

"For the first couple of weeks I was doing all the cooking and shopping, my boyfriend Conner was driving me around doing the deliveries," she said.

"From there we started fundraising and I asked if anyone wanted to help and everyone wanted to get involved."

Molly's Meals has continued and is still providing food in Kenilworth, with a team of volunteers working on a rota system to cook and deliver it.

Miss Bufton Stear said she was "most proud" of the relationship it had helped build with older people in the community.

When she found out about her honour, she said: "I am so grateful, but it hasn't really hit me yet.

"I also want to say how much I appreciate everyone who helped. I started Molly's Meals but they have helped it to continue."

Last month, Miss Bufton Stear moved to Madrid with her boyfriend to become an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher.

Other honours recipients from Warwickshire include:

• Robert Ramsay Collingwood Sherman, 73, from Leamington Spa, who launched the Harbury E-Wheels initiative, providing electronic transport to those in need. He receives a BEM for services to the community in Harbury

• Rachel Booth, 52, from Hatton, who set up the Warwickshire Scrubbers Facebook Group to sew scrubs for medical professionals. She gets a BEM for services to the community in Warwickshire

• Abigail Kathryn Sheridan de Graaff, 49, who also sewed scrubs with the Warwickshire Sewing Bees Group, and receives a BEM for services to the Warwickshire Scrubbers and to the provision of PPE

• Timothy Lockley, 50, of Leamington Spa, a parish councillor who set up voluntary groups to support people during the pandemic, is appointed an MBE for services to the community in Harbury, particularly during Covid-19

• Melanie Coombes, 54, of Baddesley, chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, is made an MBE for services to nursing

• Margaret Johnston Low, 60, of Coventry, a professor at the University of Warwick, is appointed an MBE for services to public engagement and widening participation