Before Christmas, we saw a plea on social media from Oldham Foodbank, crying out for donations to help an ever-increasing demand to the service. We were also made aware of another fantastic organisation, Hope Restoration who were provided care packages to families and older persons in need.
As a group we decided to donate £200 worth of goods to the Foodbank and £50 plus additional goods to Hope Restoration to help to ease their demands. It didn’t stop there though. We knew after Christmas would indeed be a more significant time to try to help since a lot more people would be feeling the pinch after the festive period and facing a LONG month awaiting the January payday!
Statistically, 6.8 people per 100,000 sleep rough in England on a single night (Ref: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-England-autumn-2023), which for me is simply very upsetting to learn, being fortunate to not have had the experience of being in that position got me thinking; what would it actually be like?
On Friday, January 19, 2024, a group of us had a taste of the humbling experience of being removed from our creature comforts and sleeping out overnight. Due to extreme weather conditions that evening and health and safety (since at the end of the day we were not used to being in this position), we bunked down in Shaw RBL Branch Hall. There was snow and ice on the ground outside and temperatures were still a mere 1C; safe to say we had to layer up.
From this campaign we were able to purchase over £100 worth of goods for the Foodbank along with collecting further goods for them and Hope Restoration. We also collected clothes, sanitary products, toiletries, sleeping bags, as well as hats, gloves and scarves kindly knitted for us by Vicki Wilkinson, one of our followers. I had linked in with Acts435 and Encounter Ministries, who hold the Lighthouse Project; providing food, supplies and support for people who are homeless or have been. The most heart-warming experience was attending one week to take all that we had collected down and speaking to the people that would benefit from them.
