21/03/2026
Can you help us make a broken face smile again?
Over the last 5 weeks Tania and myself have been driving around Hanley, Burslem & Tunstall areas of Stoke on Trent between 6.30 pm & 9.30 pm most nights and weekends looking for homeless people who we can give warm clothes and hot food to so they can survive the cold and wet nights.
We have met many homeless people recently and noticed there are more women sleeping rough than men. We understand that some of these people have had a life of crime, drug & alcohol abuse and some of them don't want any help but there are a lot of people who do want help but struggle to get at night or weekends.
There are groups, and organisations around the city that do really help and together with smaller groups like ourselves can make a big difference to people less fortunate than ourselves.
During our visits we always remain safe but talk & ask what people need to help them.
By talking and listening to people we soon learnt that anyone's life & situations can quickly change and you become homeless and people sleeping rough get a lot of physical and verbal abuse.
So far we have paid for all the warm clothes, food and fuel ourselves but it's starting to cost us around £80 per week so we have written to many shops for support but they seem to favour the larger organisations so we then contacted some of the businesses we work for and some of them have made great donations of goods etc which is really appreciated.
If you can help us please with any items message myself and we will collect your generous donation from you, also store vouchers are very useful like Iceland where we buy our food , bottled water and other items we distribute.
We're looking for the following items (cheap supermarket brands are great value for money)
Thermal hats, gloves & socks
Toothpaste and tooth brushes
Mouthwash (non alcoholic)
Baby & body wipes.
Female hygiene products
Roll on deodorant (not spray)
Cheap nylon zipper cagools.
Foil blankets (cheap on eBay)
Blankets
Small torches
Hand held attack alarms
Coffee
Small bottles of water
Biscuits and chocolate
Cereal bars
Watching someone's face smile when you give them a warm drink and food is worth all the time in the world.
Can you please help us.
Kind regards
Rob & Tania Owen.
