Volunteers come to support Thetford night shelter

A Thetford night shelter is set to start serving hot evening meals to the homeless and rough sleepers next week after more than one hundred people offered to volunteer for the project.

Co-ordinators Diane Dickson, Andrea Jarrold, and Nadine Forde say they have been taken aback by the support for the initiative, that will be at the Salvation Army Hall, on Magdalen Street, in the town.

Andrea said: "We had a volunteer meeting on Monday, more than 70 people came and there was also about 25 who could not make the meeting but have still volunteered.

"It is just amazing, with the amount of people donating their time, money and items, it just shows the strong community we have in the town and we can not thank them enough."

A measure of this has been the response on social media, a post put on the shelter's Facebook page with a list of donation items, received 27,000 views and was shared more than 400 times. Andrea has been told that those figures are something that some businesses could only dream of getting.

She said: "We have had offers of food, suitcase loads of clothes, taxi companies offering to pick up donations for free and even donations out of the town, it has just been incredible."

The project's evening meals start from Monday, December 17 until Wednesday, January 2 between 6pm and 9pm.

There will also be overnight shelter and breakfast every day, from Sunday December 23 until Thursday, January 3, between 10pm and 10am.

The project is still accepting all donations, they especially would like hand-warmers and more clothes.

To see the donations list, go to www.facebook.com/pg/ThetfordNightShelter or for more details on the project, email nightshelterthetford@gmail.com