Canterbury Homeless Outreach, a student society at the University of Kent, undertook a ‘sleep-out’ to raise money for local homelessness charities, including the Canterbury Housing Advice Centre.
CHO members still smiling at the charity sleepout.
Starting at 8am on Friday 8th November, the students set up camp outside the Templeman Library where they had a stand giving information to passing students about the work of Canterbury Housing Advice Centre, Catching Lives and Porchlight.
The sleep-out ran for 24-hours, during which over 30 volunteers attended. During the day CHO put on various fundraising activities to get people involved, including a penalty shootout, balance a coin on a lemon in water and a raffle. During the night, temperatures got as low as 1 degree celsius, with the weather app saying that the "real-feel" temperate was -1 degree celsius.
The event ended 8am on Saturday. After warming up, CHO president Laura Smith said:
Our event raised over £700 and raised a lot of awareness of the conditions homeless people experience. All money raised will be divided three ways to Canterbury Housing Advice Centre, Catching Lives and Porchlight, all local charities who work go a long way in directly improving hundreds of people's lives. It made people question how hard it can be for homeless people as they walked across campus. It was an extremely eye-opening event and we hope to have more big events like this in the future.
CHAC Chair Nick Piska said:
We’re very lucky at Canterbury Housing Advice Centre to have the support of CHO; they do great work in the community themselves, and on top of that raise awareness of issues of housing and homelessness as well as much needed funds. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all involved in the sleepout, a great effort.
There’s still time to donate: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/chosleepout
