‘HO-t, HO-t, HO-t’ dinner – charity calls for people to dig deep to help homeless

Edinburgh’s leading resettlement charity is calling on City residents to dig deep this Christmas to ensure previously homeless families can have a ‘HO-t, HO-t, HO-t’ meal.

Fresh Start ignited its annual Cookers for Christmas appeal yesterday and this year is calling on 2,400 Capital residents to donate just £5 to help the charity provide cookers for 150 families and individuals.

The charity needs less than 1% of Edinburgh residents to donate just £5 to its annual Cookers for Christmas Appeal to ensure it meets last year’s total.

Keith Robertson, Managing Director at Fresh Start, said: “Help make someone’s Christmas.  If one if every 200 people in Edinburgh donated just £5 to our appeal, we’d be able to provide cookers for 150 families.

“This year, thanks to our new cookers re-use project, we’ll be able to help more people than ever before – but we’re only able to do this with your help.”

He added: “Dickensian as it may sound there will be families and individuals in Edinburgh this Christmas who sit down to a cold Christmas dinner. For families who have recently been housed, a cooker is often too expensive. But with your help we can ensure some of those households don’t have to sit down to a cold meal again.”

The charity’s new innovative Cooker re-use service means it will be able to help many more people than in previous years. Historically the Cookers for Christmas donations have used to buy new cookers but Fresh Start have opened a new service – The Food Station.

The Food Station hosts a new Electrical Workshop where the charity can now test donated cookers which will be passed onto clients, meaning it can increase the number of people it can help.

The Food Station is a wider project aimed at addressing health inequalities, with new Food Packs being prepared there, cooking and budgeting classes, and an allotment to provide food for the cooking classes.

Mr Robertson added: “Help make someone’s Christmas by donating on our Fresh Start Cookers for Christmas Just Giving Page, and spread the word through social media using #cookersforchristmas”

To donate visit Fresh Start’s Just Giving Page – http://www.justgiving.com/Fresh-Start-Cookers-for-Christmas-2013