It all started back in September said spokesman for the club Kevin Maddox we sent out letters to twenty schools and churches requesting help at Harvest festival time and thirteen responded we then collected and collated 1,000 items ranging from soup, cans of beans and non-perishable items.
Not content with the food the club took the project further mounting a massive PR campaign on local radio, newspapers, social media using Facebook on the various sites that cover the town and the uptake was amazing with 7,490 people reading our appeal for clothes toiletries, sleeping bags, tents, gloves woolly hats and any other items that would keep the homeless warm this winter.
We then arranged through the local council a market stall in the civic square on the popular Artisan Market that is organised by organised by Rtn Karen Dorney, we dressed the stall with Rotary banners and exterior flags and the end result was that in 5 Hours we collected 120 black bin bags of homeless goods that would again need collating before the distribution to the following locations along with the harvest collection Life-share and Mustard Tree Manchester, Wellspring Stockport, Infinity/Greystones Ashton Under Lyne, Sandwich Angels in Hyde and three local food banks. The media picked up on our story and much praise was bestowed on Hyde Rotary Club and the Hyde community for helping to keep the homeless population in greater Manchester warm and fed in these cold winter conditions.