A little bit of history

Founded by Dave and Chris Bagley MBE from their attic in 1990, we had our beginnings in a project called STAY – providing short term accommodation for young people experiencing difficulties with nowhere to call home.

In 1996 we responded to a growing concern for the street homeless by launching an overnight winter cafe called ‘Winter Watch’. For 23 years, this provided hot food, shelter and a place of warmth and friendship. The café became a place of safety for street sex workers and so the charity developed its outreach support for both rough sleepers and for sex workers.

Us Today

We are now a well-established and respected grass-roots charity. We are adept at finding solutions to difficult and intractable social problems. Today we deliver a range of commissioned and grant funded work across these main areas:

• Support for those with an offending background and those struggling with substance misuse
• Help for those who have experienced trauma and abuse
• Supporting those who are homelessness into suitable accommodation
• Help for children and families who are experiencing challenging difficulties
• Food and support for those in crisis and struggling in poverty

We have a well-established track record delivering excellent outcomes. Over the past year, we have provided critical support to individuals on over 120,000 occasions.

Working with a breadth of local partners, we pull people together to make things happen and are led by a dedicated and broadly experienced board of trustees. We are privileged to be supported by an ‘army’ of over 2,000 amazing volunteers – mainly in the areas of food collecting, sorting, preparation and distribution.