mhs homes Sponsored Sleepout 2010
mhs homes will be holding a
sponsored sleepout on Saturday 30th January 2010 to help
raise awareness of the plight of homeless people.
The sleepout will be the eighth time
the landlord has held the event but only the second time it’s taken
place in the grounds of their Head Office "Broadside", Chatham. The
event has been planned to coincide with Poverty & Homelessness
Action week "Enough for all" which takes place between Saturday
30th January to Sunday 7th February.
The main objective of sleeping out
in cardboard boxes from 9.00pm to 6.00am is to raise money for
local homeless charity "Caring Hands in the Community" and the mhs
homes staff chosen charity for 2010, which will be announced at the
end of November. mhs homes has been running this event biennially
for seventeen years. In 2008 over 140 people slept out in cardboard
boxes to help raise awareness and funds.
Caring Hands in the Community,
based on New Road Avenue, Chatham is a day centre dedicated to
helping the homeless. They provide laundry facilities, a computer
suite, medical treatment, and showers. They also have an outreach
team that go out in the streets of Medway each Monday night
bringing soup, sandwiches and basic First Aid to the homeless.
Centre Manager for Caring Hands in
the Community, Marti Brogan said, "We are absolutely delighted to
be partnered with mhs homes again on the sponsored sleepout. It
couldn’t have come at a better time as we are just looking at
branching out our services to provide life skills training to
people that use the centre. This will hopefully help people get
back into employment. I did the sleepout with mhs back in 2005 and
I’m looking forward to working with them again to raise awareness
of the struggles homeless people can face and help raise money for
charity."