Thursday 10 October was World Homeless Day, and Faith in Action staff and volunteers marked it with a major presence in Wimbledon town centre.
It was an extremely enjoyable and successful day, with two FiA locations – on Wimbledon station concourse, and on the Dons Local Action Group stand outside Morrisons. Here are some of the highlights:
- We raised an amazing £1521.88 in cash and card donations. Grateful thanks go to South Western Railway for enabling us to fundraise on the station concourse.
- Dons Local Action Group kindly agreed to donate all goods collected outside Morrisons that day to our Drop-in, and we brought back seven huge boxes of vital donations.
- Several of our service users engaged with volunteers manning the stand and kindly put some change into our collection buckets.
- Huge numbers of school children positively engaged with our volunteers, taking lollipops and leaflets and kindly donating some of their lunch money to what they described as a ‘great cause’.
- An eight year old boy came over with his father, concerned about the amount of homeless people he has seen sleeping in his local area; he asked questions on what practical help he could offer them and what our charity does. He then donated £10 of his pocket money and went off with lots of leaflets to pass on to his school friends and spread the word.
- We handed out hundreds of leaflets, which hopefully will lead to further support in terms of monetary donations and standing orders being set up, more volunteers to support our service and greater awareness of our charity and work.
- Finally, Gourmet Coffee Bar and Kitchen donated us a big bag of fresh rolls and sandwiches to give to our service users.
We are hoping to organise a similar fundraising event over the Christmas period, so please do look out for the details of this.
