Tina joined a host of other participants to brave whatever the British weather could throw at her and spend a night outside, in a car-park, in Norwich City centre in aid of The Benjamin Foundation.
This was the first large scale Sleep Out held by the foundation to highlight the issue of homelessness and raise money to support their work with homeless young people in Norfolk.
This event will never replicate the hardship faced by those who are homeless. However, they wanted the event to bring to life the challenges of sleeping outside.
Tina Maguire spends a night in the cold with The Benjamin Foundation Norwich
The Benjamin Foundation has recently become a partner charity of Centrepoint, one of the country’s leading charities supporting homeless young people between the ages of 16 and 25. Homelessness is one of the key areas of their work and at any one time they are providing a home and support to over 100 young people in this age group in Norfolk. Each year Centrepoint runs a national Sleep Out event with local charities across the country all taking part and this year for the first time The Benjamin Foundation will be involved. All the money raised from the Norwich Sleep Out will stay with them to help support their work in Norfolk.
Looking to support a local charity Tina signed up to the Sleepout. She worked hard to raise funds with donations coming from friends, family, colleagues, candidates and clients.
We caught up with Tina after the event who described it as, “An interesting night, some slept in fits and starts while others slept right through the night. I woke at 2.30am to find it raining quite hard! I simply could not imagine this as a way of life for anyone, in particular young homeless people, they must be so vulnerable to everything. 70 people took part in all; we were asked to estimate how much we had raised when booking in. Final figures are yet to be released but it is estimated £16,000 at least has been raised, making the Norwich Sleep Out 2015 the biggest fund raiser of the charity to date. They are looking to make it an annual event and I am so pleased I did it.”
At Big Sky Additions we are proud to do whatever we can to support local charities whenever we can. Having raised funds for the East Anglian Air Ambulance for a number of years, and now with Tina for The Benjamin Foundation, we will continue to support worthwhile local causes.
There is still time to sponsor Tina please go here to donate.
Well done Tina!