Posts Tagged ‘homelessness’

In 2010, we set out on a mission to extend the direct action on-the-street work we were doing by organising a food drive for local homeless shelters. Seven years later and we’re celebrating our 8th annual food drive with another bumper event.

The event couldn’t happen without all of the generous donations you make, so thank you to everyone who provided food, clothing, toiletries and money.

Sarann, charity coordinator at West Yorkshire Humanists, headed the event. It’s thanks to her tireless work that it happens. I would also like to say a big thank you to the other groups who contribute to making the event so great. In particular, Darren from the Interfaith Vegan Alliance and Jo from Mill Hill Chapel who lends us his church. The event represents different groups coming together for the best of reasons.

Click the thumbnails to see the full-size image.

I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped out with the Humanist Action Group‘s 2016 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters.

Once again it was a heroic effort from Sarann, charity coordinator at West Yorkshire Humanists, who organised the entire event. We also want thank Jo James for allowing us to use Mill Hill Chapel, and all the volunteers who donated items and turned up at the final boxing to help us package and deliver everything.

Here are some of my favourite photos from the event:

Last month Sarann organised a food drive. It was great to see the various Humanist groups around Leeds including West Yorkshire Humanists and Sunday Assembly Leeds all coming together to help the homeless. As ever, Sarann did an excellent job organising everything!

A huge thank you to everyone who helped out with this year’s Humanist Action Group 2015 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters in Leeds. In particular well done to Sarann who took the lead this year in organising everything, and did an amazing job!

We did not inventorise everything this year, so we do not have a grand total for how much we raised. However we did make deliveries to three different shelters in Leeds, a food bank charity named Fair Share and contributed to the Vegan Feast, a monthly hot meal for homeless people in Leeds. This totals to five separate organisations who received a delivery from us.

Thank you to Mill Hill Chapel who kindly provided free use of their building to us. Here are some of my favourite photos from the event.

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the Humanist Action Group‘s 2014 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelter. Our final boxing was a long hard day but well worth it in the end. We are pleased to announced so far we have raised in-kind donations worth…

The donations went to four local homeless shelters and will benefit all of their residents. Thanks to your kind contributions a hundred people that would have woken up with nothing over the holidays will now receive much needed food, clothing and toiletries.

You can see all the photos from the event on our Flickr page.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of the Humanist Action Group 2014 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters in Leeds. Last year we managed to collect over £3,000 worth of donations and this year will mark our fifth anniversary.

We’re looking for donations of food, toiletries and clothing, as well as time and money to run the operation and buy more stuff. Learn more on the Humanist Action Group website or join us on Facebook.

Thank you to all you wonderful people that contributed to the Humanist Action Group‘s 2013 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters! As we round things to a close we are pleased to announced so far we have raised in-kind donations worth…

The donations went to three local homeless shelters and will benefit all of their residents. Thanks to your kind contributions a hundred people that would have woken up with nothing over the holidays will now receive much needed food, clothing and toiletries.

You can see all the photos from the event on our Flickr page.

Having recently read and very much enjoyed The Grapes of Graph (perhaps I should say “was moved by” rather than “enjoyed”), it is isn’t interesting to see the parallels between the harsh times experienced in the Great Depression and the not as bad but still regrettable plight of many of our own members of society.

In the book, Ma Joad says something along the lines of “the thing I’m learning more. If you’re in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help —the only ones.”

This is a phenomenon that can be often seen throughout society. For example, my father, who is a gas engineer, once told me that poor people are far more likely to tip than wealthy people are – perhaps because they are more aware of financial pressures and the had work people do.

This can also be seen in the homeless world as well. Last night we met three people with dogs and all of them told us the same thing – the dog eats before I do. You can tell – all of the dogs looked well fed, their fur was in good condition and most of them were wrapped up in nice coats, one was even in a hoodie.

To matter how down on their luck people get, most never stop caring about others. Indeed, it may even be a prerequisite.

Earlier this month, the Humanist Action Group completed our third annual Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters. This year was bigger than ever, raising, including in-kind giving, almost £3,000! We learned a lot from what we did this year, tried some new things, some of which worked and some of which was less successful.

To reflect this, we’ve now got a new edition of the HAG Food Drive guide – this publication provides all the information you need to run a food drive in your local area and now includes whole new sections based on our recent experiences. Get in touch if you would like a copy – it’s free!

Having finished chairing the Leeds Skeptics meeting, I sped up to North Leeds on Wednesday to join the end of White Rose Speakers’ final meeting before Christmas, which, for a holiday celebration, was being held at one of the member’s houses (who happens to have a large house).

The reason I was so keen to get there was that the group had very kindly agreed to do a collection and raffle to raise money for the Humanist Action Groups 2012 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters.

Once there, they sprung a table topic on me, the song title “Merry Christmas Everyone”, to which I talked about how you can’t call an event this time of year a Christmas event as people get upset, so you have to end up calling it about a dozen different things in the title to keep everyone happy.

We came away with bags of stuff, and plenty of money from the raffle too! Thanks to everyone donated, your support is very much appreciated!