An east London business park has promised to store much-needed bedding and toiletries for homeless people free-of-charge during a winter charity campaign.
Londoneast-uk Business and Technical Park in Dagenham has signed a five-year deal with homelessness charity Crisis to continue storing dry goods for its Christmas appeal.
The annual Crisis at Christmas operation provides food, warmth and medical help to thousands of homeless people every year.
The business park will give 15,000 square feet of space to the charity for the next five years – as well as an extra 17,000 square feet for the charity to either use or rent out for extra funding.
Keith Felton, the director of corporate services for Crisis, said: “We are grateful to Londoneast-uk for their generosity in supporting our commercial arrangement with them by donating this additional storage space.
“This has the potential to generate much-needed funds for our work to end homelessness.”
More than 10,000 volunteers are needed every year to run the Crisis at Christmas appeal.
Across Britain, 13 centres are being opened to offer food and clothing as well as advice and support for rough sleepers to get them out of homelessness.
Last year around 4,700 homeless people visited Crisis centres over the festive period.
John Lewis, the head of the site, said: “Crisis has been utilising space at Londoneast-uk for the past 15 months for storage connected to their Crisis at Christmas programme.
“We are delighted that this arrangement is now being extended for a total of five years which includes a donation from us which virtually doubles the space capacity available to the charity.
“This additional space can be sub-let by Crisis to other organisations with rental funds raised going to the charity during the term of this agreement.
“We feel this is a novel way to provide support to a body that does such marvellous work to end homelessness.”
