This Christmas new and long-term partners have generously given their time volunteering, raised essential funds and donated large amounts of stock to support our Christmas guests. Every donation we received this Christmas enabled us to help people out of homelessness and allows us to influence the changes needed to solve it all together.
Watch our Thank You video to see the impact of Crisis at Christmas.
We thought we would share a few seasonal activities we have seen this Christmas:
Specsavers: Specsavers continued their support of Crisis at Christmas by sponsoring the campaign again this year, as well as running their own instore activation across stores nationwide to raise awareness for people experiencing homelessness and their charity partners.
Specsavers played a key role in helping us to expand our healthcare offering across all of our Skylight centres too as they organised 10 eye care clinics at our Skylights in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Merseyside, Birmingham, Oxford and Swansea. Together, we provided around 80 people with an eye test and new glasses. Receiving a new pair of glasses can make a huge difference and can help someone to make start on a life beyond homelessness. In London, in addition to eye care, we also provided ear care services for around 100 people for the first time thanks to Specsavers.
Houseful: In addition to volunteering at our centres and taking part in a chilly Santa Fun Run, our friends at Houseful raised £1,465 for our Crisis at Christmas appeal through display advertising on their website, driving donors to our festive campaign to raise vital funds for people experiencing homelessness.
Ihateironing provided our Christmas hotel guests the chance to wash their clothes, through their gift of service washes. Guests were able to have their clothing and belongings collected by ihateironing, which were then laundered and returned cleaned, dried and folded to the hotel. Being able to give our guests the dignity to wear their favourite clothes, all clean and fresh, is one more step to feeling positive and supported as heading into a new year and new start.
Pepsi Max UK: Hosted the Sock Exchange with the people of Birmingham, making a generous donation to Crisis as part of the wider campaign encouraging customers to swap their socks for fantastic Pepsi Max merch.
John Frieda: The haircare brand have supported Crisis since 2022, and donated 365 units of shampoo and 200 conditioners to the Crisis at Christmas project this year, giving our guests the opportunity to feel refreshed and rejuvenated during their stay with us.
Bensons for Beds: Bed retailer Bensons for Beds supported our flagship event the “Crisis Icebreaker Challenge” by not only sponsoring the event, but also raffling off a bedroom make over worth £2,000 to a lucky Icebreaker contestant. Each year hundreds of people across the UK face the freeze by jumping into lidos and lakes, taking icy cold showers and many more creative ways to raise funds for people experiencing homelessness during the festive season.
Not on the High Street: Launched our very own product ‘Not socks’ which represented a £10 charitable donation to Crisis, creating a meaningful gift that wouldn’t go to waste. This was part of their wider Christmas campaign which called on shoppers to Gift Fewer, Gift Better.
This is far from an exhaustive list of the fantastic and generous support we have seen this Christmas! While we will continue working to end homelessness this year we cannot wait to see what opportunities next Christmas brings.