Social Bite raises £4m for homeless
● Social Bite delivers windfall after fundraising over festive period
A festive fundraiser to tackle homelessness in Scotland has reached £4 million in donations.
Social Bite cafes working with itison, and the Sleep in the Park event in Edinburgh, saw donations soar.
As many as 500 people could now receive a place off the streets in the coming year, organisers say.
More than £4 million has been raised in a festive fundraiser to tackle homelessness in Scotland.
Social Bite cafes across the country opened up on Christmas Day to serve dinner and give out presents to people affected by the issue.
Its festive fundraising campaign, working with Itison, as well as the Sleep In The Park gig in Edinburgh helped raise more than £4m.
A Social Bite spokesman said: “Thank you so much to every single person that slept out or donated a Christmas dinner and raised so much money for Scotland’s homeless people.
“You have simultaneously registered your disgust at the system that results in people becoming homeless in such large numbers, as well as your love and affection for people with no place to call a home of their own. The job over the next 12 months is to use this money to get a minimum of 500 people off the streets and temporary shelters into a proper home with a funded support resource, and in doing so help to restructure our response to homelessness for the long term.
“We look forward to working with lots of homelessness charities, housing associations and the Scottish Government to this end.”
Sleep in the Park saw more than 8,000 people spend the night in the city’s Princes Street Gardens as part of “the world’s biggest sleepout”.
Stars signed up to perform at the Sleep In The Park event included Liam Gallagher, Deacon Blue, Amy Macdonald and Frightened Rabbit.
John Cleese performed a bedtime story which he’d written specially for the occasion, while Bob Geldof slept out and addressed the audience.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney, Communities Secretary Angela Constance and Housing Minister Kevin Stewart also spent the night in the gardens.
Social Bite was launched in 2012, by Josh Littlejohn and his partner Alice Thompson, and helps the homeless through cafés, a restaurant and fundraising events.
A quarter of Social Bite’s staff are homeless and the charity has attracted the support of Hollywood stars Leonardo Dicaprio and George Clooney.
The organisation has premises in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, and had raised an astonishing £3.6m before the event began. The charity has already donated £25,000 of funds raised from the sleepout to the Bethany Christian Trust to fund extra capacity at its winter care shelter, and two of Scotland’s biggest housing providers, Edindex and the Wheatley Group, offered almost 500 houses to homeless people.
Afinal word of thanks for all the volunteers, carers, unsung heroes and charity workers – many of them working on Christmas Day – who have helped to make this festive season a better one for so many people.
In particular, a mention for Josh Littlejohn of Social Bite whose Sleep in the Park event has now raised more than £4 million towards tackling homelessness and its causes. Yesterday, Social Bite was open again to serve food to the homeless and provide a little festive cheer on the most dreich of days.
Elsewhere, Hearts and Hibs football clubs served a full Christmas dinner to more than 200 people at their grounds in Edinburgh. This was an event made possible through the strong leadership and vision of two women – Hibs chief executive Leeann Dempster and Hearts owner Ann Budge – who realise that the role of their football clubs does not begin and end with what happens on the field.
All of this is a humbling example of what we can do when we set aside traditional rivalries and work together toward common goals.
We salute you. A very happy and peaceful Christmas to you all.