Rock Festival “Rubbish” Helps The Homeless

Discarded food items left behind by music fans at Reading Festival has been salvaged to give to homeless people. According to BBC News, up to 60 food bags will be handed out to rough sleepers after a team of volunteers collected left behind food ahead of the final clean up.

Grace Gomez, who runs a charity called New Beginnings, said the mess strewn across the site was “shocking”. The group also collected at least 25 tents along with 60 sleeping bags. Mrs Gomez said the items will be handed out to those in need at The Queens Arms in Reading, which she converted into an alcohol-free community hub last year. The pub, which offers hot meals and clothes, will hand out the food bags on Sunday.

Mrs Gomez said: “We just put a shout out on Facebook and loads of people turned up to help. It (the food) just would have been dumped, but at least people are going to be happy. When we have tins of food here it always gets snapped up. It’s great.”

The 53-year-old, who has been homeless herself, set up Christian ministry The Way in 2012 and subsequently New Beginnings to offer help to the homeless and disadvantaged. The idea was to bring an empty community building back into use that would offer help to single homeless people, but also homeless families in B&Bs who are “cooped up in one room with children”.

Having run away from home at a young age, Mrs Gomez said she has “first-hand experience of sofa-surfing and being on the streets with nowhere to go,” and living in bed and breakfast accommodation with her then two-year-old son. She said it was hard for homeless parents “not being able to prepare a meal for children, having to eat junk food, having bowls of cereal on the bed and washing up dishes in the shower”.

She added: “We thought it would be good if they had somewhere to go, they could drop in after school, there will be free food and drink on offer, and there will be a place outside for children to play – just like a pub but without the alcohol.” The pub is also a place to donate clothing and school uniforms, and Mrs Gomez has teamed up with charity FareShare – which tackles food waste – to collect surplus food from supermarkets and food production factories.

The Reading Festival started out as the National Jazz Festival in 1961, but the music moved to rock in the 1970s. This year 90,000 people attended to hear the likes of the Wombats, Wolf Alice, and headliners Kings Of Leon.