Three teachers slept rough for the night in Brighton to help raise money for a city homeless charity, raising £1956 in the process.
Roedean teachers Suzie Sturgeon, Phil Halsey and Justine Crawley spent the night sleeping in cardboard boxes in York Place just near St Peter’s Church last weekend (Nov 18) as part of the charity Off The Fence’s annual Big Sleep Out.
The Big Sleep Out is an annual fundraising challenge for people to experience what life can be like for rough sleepers and to raise money to help them off the streets and back on track for the kind of normal life that the rest of us take for granted.
Brighton and Hove is one of the highest ratio rough sleeper cities in the UK, with approximately 3735 homeless residents.
With the cost of living climbing daily, this shows no sign of getting any better. People sleeping rough die younger, are more likely to get ill and are more vulnerable to violence than the rest of us.
This is the second year the Big Sleep Out event, which each participant pays £20 to be part of, has taken place and it is supported by dozens of local companies as well as being championed by Hove MP Peter Kyle and the mayor of Brighton Lizzie Deane. Last year some £34,000 was raised for the charity.
Said Suzie: “This experience provided us with the briefest snapshot of what homeless people experience each night, and it was very powerful to hear the stories of people involved with Off The Fence. I was really impressed by the way they treat everyone as individuals. The reasons which result in someone becoming homeless are incredibly complex, and the charity works very hard to make sure that they do everything possible to meet everyone’s needs.”
Roedean raised and donated £4500 to Off The Fence last year to support the charity’s vital work. The School’s catering team also send down meals to the charity’s Hove HQ twice each week, and these are distributed to the homeless.
Categories: Roedean School School News
