Stephen Hawking’s parting Easter gift for the homeless

While his funeral was taking place less than a mile away, the Hawking family were thinking of those less fortunate.

Last Easter Saturday, 500 mourners gathered to pay their respects to the eminent professor, Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University’s Great St. Mary’s Church. Although the famed cosmologist was an atheist, his family wanted a church service “in the city that he loved so much and which loved him,” with actor Eddie Redmayne, who’d portrayed Hawking in the film The Theory of Everything, fittingly reading a passage from Ecclesiastes 3.1-11: Everything has its time.

While the bells tolled 76 times, marking each year of his life, Hawking was being toasted on the other side of the city by 50 homeless people at Wesley Methodist Church. Not necessarily for his contribution to science, but for a final act of kindness. The Hawking family had laid on a three-course meal for those in need, with a note saying: “A gift from Stephen.”

Thank you to the family of #StephenHawking for so generously supporting today's @FoodCycleCamb lunch in his memory… pic.twitter.com/rStJimtVJ5
— Alex Collis #FoodJusticeNow 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇺🇦 (@CllrAlexCollis) March 31, 2018

Organizers, FoodCycle, who aim to serve “tasty meals for people in need of a hot meal and friendship” explained how before beginning the meal the guests “had a little cheer in honor of Stephen Hawking.”