Chichester homeless charity's urgent appeal for donations after shop shuts

The Four Streets Project, which is formed of volunteers who go out into the city centre 365 nights a weeks, provides care for people sleeping rough by giving them food and other much needed provisions.

Four Streets founder Donna Ockenden said: "We've been very lucky in that a number of local companies including Eat and Pret, Fenwick's in Priory Park, Purchases and La Fish have been incredibly kind over a long period of time.

"We've been very recently disadvantaged with the closure of Eat on North Street because they had been incredibly kind in supplying to us fresh end-of-day food that, within an hour, was out on the streets of Chichester with the homeless and the hungry."

Eat announced it would be closing last month after the company was bought by Pret A Manger. Read more here: Café company secures second Chichester site

Donna continued: "We do urgently need a replacement for the loss of Eat and we are keen to hear from local businesses who feel that the end of a typical day, our volunteers could come and collect in-date food that could be used that evening.

"At the moment Pret in East Street help us a number of nights a week, Fenwick's café in Priory Park provide our water, Local restaurant Purchases of North Street provide freshly made soup from Monday to Friday.

"La Fish provide small portion sizes of fish and chips usually on a Wednesday but have stepped up to help us on a Monday and of course we have local ladies who bake cakes twice a week as a treat for the homeless."

The charity recently revealed there has been a rise in the number of homeless people in Chichester city centre. Read more here: Homelessness in Chichester on the rise, charity says

Donna said the charity is now looking for a company which would be able to provide fresh food to the project several nights a week.

She added: "Several nights a week we are now short of fresh food to give to our homeless community. The food absolutely must be in date and able to be used that night."

Anyone who is able to help The Four Streets Project with donations or by volunteering, should contact Donna on [email protected]