This year World Homeless Day landed on Tuesday 10th October 2023. One of our group members came up with the idea to mark the day by holding a sponsored 'Sleep Out.'

This was not an attempt to belittle the experience of rough sleeping; more of a respectful acknowledgement of the issue. Many of us at Our Community Allotment have lived experience of homelessness and sleeping outdoors.

On the morning of the event, some of us put up our tents and got the sleeping site ready at a local church yard.

In the evening, we built a fire using a flint and natural fibres in our big fire bowl in the fire circle at our community allotment site, ready to cook our feast.

Andzej harvested some huge potatoes to bake on the coals.

And we cooked up a big vegan chilli including our own grown onions, garlic, tomatoes and chillies.

The food was delicious and we enjoyed listening to some tunes round the fire during the evening.

Then some of us walked over to the church yard camping site and slept out for the night. We were really lucky that the weather stayed dry. And we managed to pack down the site before the rain started in the morning.

Each member of the group who slept out has individually requested sponsorship with paper forms but we also set up a fundraising page. Here's the link so you can still donate directly if you'd like to:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/ruth-wood-1694588765759?utm_campaign=lc_frp_share_transaction_transactional_--page_launched--_charity&utm_content=8edfbb6f-8cea-4508-ac6f-0111ad971266&utm_medium=email&utm_source=postoffice&utm_term=1694589412518

All proceeds will go to our allotment project's ongoing costs including this years site rent and our annual winter/ xmas dinner celebration.