A restaurant group gave 600 meals to families in need across the island on Christmas Eve.

Take Five, the owners of the Buzz chain, teamed up with the Bermuda Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to give its weekly food programme a major boost for the holidays.

The donation, part of the business’s pledge to donate 2,000 meals every year, also pushed them 100 meals above their goal.

A spokeswoman for Take Five said that the food programme was usually run from the church’s King Street site in Hamilton, but the extra meals meant the church could offer families meals at other SDA sites.

She added: “The donation reflects an organisational effort and commitment to spread a little joy, with staff of Take Five Limited and a group of very generous private donors contributing towards the purchase of ingredients.”

Take Five chefs prepared holiday favourites such as turkey, cassava pie and other Christmas dishes in their spare time and other staff delivered the results to the church.

Meisha Medford, the head of human resources at Take Five, said: “It’s truly an honour to give back to our community.

“We understand first-hand that the last two years have been difficult and we felt a strong duty to give back where and how we could.”

She added: “While Christmas is the primary season of giving, we didn’t want to wait for December.

“That is why the initiative was spread out throughout the year, with December being our largest meal donation.”

Take five donates dishes every week to the Eliza DoLittle Society’s Daily Bread programme and Meals on Wheels.