#SleepwithSimon

It’s been over a week since Sleep with Simon 2018. If you took part, we hope you have recovered from the lack of sleep and chilly night. Thank you for joining us, for raising funds and above all, for your dedicated support to try and help rough sleepers who sleep out in the open every night.

I think anyone who took part will agree with us that the thought of doing that every night would be incredibly difficult. Whilst the event was in no way intended to replicate the realities rough sleepers face, the night spent sleeping out in the open on a cold night helped raise both awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by rough sleepers every day.

Now you must all be wondering how much money you all collectively raised, and we are delighted to be able to tell you that you helped us raise £22,000 - more than a 45% increase on last year!

Video credits: Linda Borscika.

As a small, independent charity we rely upon such fundraising. We are a purely outreach focused organisation and in excess of 75% of all funds raised by the charity, donated or raised on our behalf are spent directly upon support to our service users. This allows us to continue our vital work with rough sleepers, helping them to turn their lives around and get the support they need with mental health and any dependencies they may have.

The remainder is spent on the element of the charity that supports our outreach teams to allow them to do their jobs and to help remove the stigma attached to rough sleeping by providing presentations to all areas of our community within the county. Thank you all once again. We really do have some amazing supporters and we could not have done this without YOU!

We would also like to thank The Royal Armories, Torsion Group, Manjit’s Kitchen, the Hepworth Brass Band, the Red Ladder Theatre Company, Penny Mallory, the Bean Rover Mobile Café and Red’s True Barbecue.

The Hepworth Brass Band entertained participants on their arrival to the event, held at the Tilt Yard in the Royal Armories. An evening meal, generously sponsored by Torsion Group, was cooked by the fantastic Manjit’s Kitchen.

Red Ladder Theatre Company kindly treated our participants to see an exclusive performance of ‘Mother Courage and her Children’, which we all thought was fantastic!

Our sleepout participants also had the chance to listen to an inspirational and thought-provoking talk from champion rally driver and motivational speaker, Penny Mallory.

Throughout the night, the Bean Rover Mobile Café served teas, coffees and amazing hot chocolates.

In the morning, Red’s True Barbecue provided breakfast for all participants.

This year’s sleep-out was in collaboration with national charity, CEO sleepout, which works to encourage CEO’s of companies to sleep rough for the night to raise funds for homelessness initiatives.