An Average City Centre Thursday Night
The days leading up to Thursday night
On the week leading up to a Thursday night, there is lots of preparation to be done…
First things first, we have lots of generous donations to go pick up from people. We then take these donations and sort them into different bags ready for Thursday nights. We use large IKEA bags to separate the categories of clothing such as women’s tops, men’s jeans, blankets, dog coats and lots more.
Cars full of donations 
All sorted into Ikea bags 
On Wednesday night begins the prep of the meals, we take out around 100 meals a week, so that’s a lot of prep.
Turkey prepped for Christmas dinner 
Roast Potatoes prepped for Homeless
The Day of Outreach
Each Thursday we have lots of work to do before we go to the city centre in the evening.
One of our volunteers makes 20 litres of hot drinks every week. She makes hot chocolate with hot milk, and the homeless love this and we run out of quickly every week. She also makes coffee, tea and brings extra water for things such as cuppa soups and pot noodles.
A few of our volunteers help to make the food as we have lots of meals to make, so all the cooking has to happen on Thursday to ensure it’s nice and hot when it gets to the homeless.
A few of our volunteers help to make the food as we have lots of meals to make, so all the cooking has to happen on Thursday to ensure it’s nice and hot when it gets to the homeless.
Once all the food and drinks are prepped and packed its time to pack up the cars and vans full to the brim with clothes, toiletries, food and much more
On the night
At around 7pm the team begin to arrive at the meeting point, with cars full of donations. We unpack the cars into trolleys on the street ready to set off around town. We also pack sandwiches, cold drinks, crisps and snacks into snack bags so they are easy to give out to our homeless friends.
We have started to get some of the homeless coming and waiting for us at the meeting point, all excited for their hot food and drinks.
Once we have served all the homeless at the meeting point, we begin our regular route around the city centre.
The homeless begin to know where we are going to be at what time and we have regular people come to see us at certain places. This means we have begun to build good relationships with some of them and learn more about their pasts.
By the end of the
night we have usually run out of all food, hot drinks, sleeping bags, tents and much more.
