Sleep rough for ONE night for those who sleep rough EVERY night
Sleep Rough:2010 to get over 300 sleeping outside in November
Peterborough Soup Kitchen is inviting over 300 people to ‘sleep rough’ for one night in November – to bring in badly needed money and raise awareness of the city’s high number of homeless population.
The charity – which serves food to the homeless six nights a week – is to organise its huge Sleep Rough:2010 event outside Sainsbury’s in Bretton on November 12th. The location has been chosen as the store is supporting the Soup Kitchen as its charity of the year for the second year running.
To promote the event and highlight issues of homelessness in the city, Peterborough Soup Kitchen has created a special video, which can be seen on You-Tube: is inviting supporters to “Sleep rough for ONE night for those who sleep rough EVERY night.”
Manager of Sainsbury’s at Bretton, Alex Bettison was first to volunteer to sleep rough for the event and explains: 
“When the organisers came to me to ask if they could use the outside of our store for Sleep Rough:2010 I was so impressed with the idea, I volunteered to take part on the spot. It’ll highlight the great work that Peterborough Soup Kitchen does on behalf of the homeless.”
Ian Davies, Chairman of Peterborough Soup Kitchen, says the idea behind Sleep Rough:2010 is twofold:
“To raise the money required to buy a new van to serve food to help feed homeless people, and raise awareness in our local community of the problems that homeless and disadvantaged people face, every day.
“We’re inviting many of the ‘great and good’ in Peterborough to attend this event, including the Lord Mayor, all the local MPs, city and parish councillors, the Bishop of Peterborough and all his priests in greater Peterborough, the head of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, the chairman and players of POSH, the heads of the local NHS PCTs, heads of secondary schools, academies and colleges in the city, many people in the local media and the chairmen or chief execs of the largest local companies.”
Sleep Rough:2010 is a way to highlight the problems in a very public way. However, we need a large number of people to attend this event to make it successful. We have especially directed our focus on the local churches in greater Peterborough, with such a large numbers of parishioners. That is why we are encouraging people to participate as individuals, families and church teams to attend.
Sleep Rough:2010 will start at 10pm on Friday 12th November and finish at 7 am next morning.
Peterborough Soup Kitchen will offer the ‘sleepers’ taking part hot food, drinks and soup during the night, just as it has for the past 26 years. Sainsbury’s will provide breakfast from its cafe in the Bretton store in the morning.
Carlos Dominguez, fundraiser for Peterborough Soup Kitchen, who devised Sleep Rough:2010, explains that it’s open to everyone and that individuals, families and teams are welcome to take part: “We’ll be asking people to raise a minimum of £95 sponsorship each for the Soup Kitchen. By having a large number of like-minded people together for such a cause, we want to make the event very sociable, friendly and one that people won’t forget in a hurry.
“The response has been fantastic. Virtually everyone who hears about it wants to take part, which gives us great confidence that we can get over 300 taking part - helping to raise money, letting others know what it’s really like to sleep rough and also raising awareness of what to many is an ‘invisible’ problem.
Homelessness is happening all around us every night and day, but most of us just don’t see it.”
For more details and registration for Sleep Rough:2010 Click here for the the Peterborough Soup Kitchen website.
