On the 5th December, The Summit Youth Group are going to be giving up their warm, cosy beds for the night and will be sleeping outside for the second year to raise funds for the Church Urban Fund to help tackle homelessness and raise awareness of the issue. During the evening they will also be making up care packages for those who use Night Shelters.

Recent analysis by the Financial Times found that one in every 200 households in the UK is experiencing homelessness and record numbers of households are also living in temporary accommodation in England. For example, a total of 131,140 households were living in temporary accommodation in March 2025 – a record-high and 12% higher than a year ago. Countless others will struggle with hidden homelessness. They will sleep on strangers' sofa's, in empty squats, or move between temporary, often unsafe, accommodation.

This personal fundraising challenge doesn't show us what it really means to experience homelessness, but it does help raise awareness, and vital funding for people in great need.

The Church Urban Fund’s (CUF) initiatives provide one-to-one care and skills training for people that need to live independently. Social action in the community is at the heart of everything they do. They equip local partners, churches, and volunteers to help people facing homelessness develop the skills needed to support themselves – now and in the future.

They do this by coming alongside projects like the CUF-supported Place of Welcome at St Barnabas Soup Kitchen, to shine God’s love on those who’ve been in some really dark places and help them to flourish.

This initiative has helped people like David who had fallen into a path of trauma, exclusion, crime, addiction, and homelessness. When he realised he wanted to turn his life around, he had to cut himself off from all of the people he had known before and start again. This was how he found the St Barnabas Soup Kitchen; a place where everyone is welcome, from those facing homelessness to local councillors.

David said, “I didn’t want to slip back, so I made new friends and started coming here, because sharing and talking solves problems”.

To learn more about David’s story you can go to their website www.cuf.org.uk/light.

Please help CUF reach more people like David, by supporting my fundraising today.

If you would like to watch Summit's Advent Sleepover efforts from 2024, please watch using this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFioFpQi6CA

Thank you!