It has been confirmed that £500,000 was raised to help build accommodation for the homeless in Scotland, following the sponsored sleep-out in Edinburgh in December which saw 250 Scots brave the cold weather to raise money for the Social Bite village project.
The 250 participants included high profile Chief Executive Officers from various different businesses across the country, as well as politicians and sports stars including decorated Olympian Sir Chris Hoy, who all camped out in Charlotte Square for the night.
The innovate, independent sandwich shop Social Bite joined forces with the City of Edinburgh Council and EDI Group on the new village, which is set to provide a purpose-built and safe living environment for 20 homeless people in Scotland for 12 months each, and the village project is expected to be launched in the summer.
Social Bite posted the news to its Facebook community, and stated, “We are delighted to announce that the total amount raised from the CEO Sleep-Out event held last month in Edinburgh was £564, 545.64! This figure has exceeded our original target of £500,000 needed to build an entire village for homeless and vulnerable people in Scotland. Thank you to everyone involved for making the first steps on that journey with us by funding our village project.”
It is great to see projects such as this doing well and gaining the support of a local community, because the problem of the amount of people living on the streets has been significantly growing, and the figures around the UK in 2016 were a massive increase on the previous year.
Steps definitely need to be taken to address this issue, and the Social Bite village project will hopefully be followed by many more projects which span across various other areas of the UK, and in turn help to reduce the number of homeless people.
