Did British charity hide Meghan Markle's $13K donation? Himmah director says she is polarizing 'like Marmite'
A British charity has said it kept a £10,000 ($13,827.75) donation from Meghan Markle a secret because she's “like Marmite”. The food spread made from yeast extract, in informal British usage, is used to describe something that people either love or hate - in other words, something that causes intense polarized reactions. As per reports, Nottingham charity Himmah was prompted to speak out following her explosive tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this month.
As per news reports, in August 2020, Meghan donated funds from The Royal Foundation to Himmah, a grassroots community-based initiative that tackles poverty, mental wellbeing, racism, and social exclusion. As per the charity’s website, it does this “through a combination of service provision, campaigning work, arts, and education work and collaboration with individuals, communities, and organizations.” The money given to the charity has reportedly been used to stock the food bank and provide funds for the Salaam Shalom Kitchen, the only joint Muslim and Jewish community kitchen in the UK.
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Himmah’s director Sajid Mohammad said: "The reason we didn't go public is the trustees took a view that she was like Marmite and there could be reputational issues -- people not liking our charity because they don't like her -- so we decided to keep the donation secret. After the interview, we realized we're a poverty and race organization [and] that we needed to show solidarity."
Speaking about racism around her son Archie and him not receiving the prince title, Meghan told Oprah in the interview, "They didn't want him to be a prince or princess, not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol, and [said] that he wasn't going to receive security.”
“In those months when I was pregnant... we have in tandem the conversation of, you won't be given security, not gonna be given a title and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born,” she said. She also spoke about suicidal thoughts she had and how Buckingham Palace brushed off her attempts to seek help.
Mohammad told BBC that by speaking out about the donation, he wants to make people think "beyond the interview". He asked people to remember what the couple did to help charities when they were in England. "I think that work needs to be recognized," he said.
As per the report, Mohammad said he initially thought the donation, which was made via email, was "an elaborate hoax". But when he realized it was genuine, he said: "I actually cried". He said the trustees and volunteers were "completely moved by the very kind and generous and gracious words of the duchess".
As per another news report, The Duchess of Sussex, celebrating Women's History Month, baked a cake made with lemons from the garden of her Montecito home as part of an Archewell Foundation dinner thrown for a group of Chicago women in partnership with World Central Kitchen.
In a letter addressed to the recipients of the meal, she wrote, “We hope you enjoy the offering we baked for you -- a small token of thanks, from our home to yours. Our hope with this effort is to show that, when we all participate, even the smallest actions can have a ripple effect. Even individual actions can impact the whole of us.” The meal is part of the work World Central Kitchen has been doing throughout the pandemic, serving almost 500,000 meals to the residents of Chicago by working with the YWCA Metropolitan and the local restaurant Fat Shallot.