Harry and Meghan Return to Nottingham to Support Youth, Families and the Hubb Women

Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex are heading to Nottingham next week for their first joint public engagements in Britain since relocating to the UK with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, and they are returning to organizations with which they already have years of history.

According to The Times, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will visit Community Recording Studio (CRS), where they will watch an acting workshop, before joining women from the Grenfell Hubb Community Kitchen to cook at Nottingham charity Himmah. They will also visit Epic Partners, which works with children and young people through sport and community programmes.  

There is something wonderfully full-circle about Nottingham being the location. In December 2017, Nottingham hosted Harry and Meghan’s first official joint royal engagement after their engagement was announced. Nearly nine years later, they are returning together, no longer representing the monarchy but still using their considerable public profile to support community organizations.

And despite all the tortured debate over whether Harry and Meghan are “private citizens” or “public figures,” both things can obviously be true. They are private individuals in the sense that they no longer undertake duties on behalf of the Crown. They are also internationally recognizable public figures. Private citizens are, remarkably, still allowed to leave the house and support charities.

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Harry’s Relationship With Nottingham Goes Back Years

This is certainly not Harry suddenly discovering Nottingham now that he needs somewhere to stage an appearance. His relationship with youth organizations in the city dates back to 2013, when he began visiting projects in St Ann’s. That work later developed into the Royal Foundation’s Full Effect programme.

The initiative brought CRS and Epic Partners together to provide music, drama, filmmaking, sport and mentoring while helping steer vulnerable young people away from crime and violence.   Harry maintained the relationship long after leaving royal duties.

In September 2025, he returned to CRS and announced a £1.1 million personal donation to BBC Children in Need to support work tackling violence affecting young people. Harry specifically highlighted CRS and Epic Partners, and ITV reported that the money came from him personally rather than the Archewell Foundation.  

That history matters, and these are relationships that stretch across more than a decade, not organizations pulled from a list because someone needed an itinerary.

Meghan Is Reuniting With the Hubb Women

Meghan’s portion of the visit has an equally substantial history behind it. She began privately visiting women from the Hubb Community Kitchen in 2018 after they came together following the Grenfell Tower fire. When Meghan learned that funding restricted how often they could use their kitchen, she suggested creating a cookbook.

Together: Our Community Cookbook went on to sell more than 130,000 copies worldwide by the end of 2018, exceeding its original £250,000 fundraising target and helping renovate the kitchen and extend its opening hours. The book also continued generating money long after its release: by 2023, it had raised a cumulative £911,000, roughly $1.2 million, according to Royal Foundation financial disclosures.

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The connection to Nottingham already exists, too. In 2021, Meghan directed £10,000 from the cookbook proceeds to Himmah, helping fund its food bank, equipment and Salaam Shalom Kitchen.  

Now she is going back to cook with the Hubb women at Himmah. I love that. There is something particularly lovely about seeing relationships formed years ago continue after the cameras, titles and royal machinery have changed. Meghan did not simply launch a cookbook, take photographs and move on. Harry continued supporting Nottingham organizations long after his formal Royal Foundation work with Full Effect ended.

And that is really what makes these engagements interesting. There will inevitably be hand-wringing over whether this looks too “royal,” whether Harry and Meghan should receive publicity for charity work, or whether two non-working royals are somehow trespassing on territory reserved for the Palace.

But celebrities, philanthropists and public figures support charities every day. In fact, using visibility to bring attention and funding to smaller organizations is largely the point. Harry and Meghan left royal duties. They did not resign from public life, and they certainly did not resign from service.