Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page where I'm raising funds for a charity that my sister and her partner have helped establish in Bristol. This year, I'll be tackling Edinburgh Marathon to help raise some money to support this amazing team that dedicate so much of their time to support those who have fallen on tough times.

I'd be grateful if you can read the below to get some context as to why I'm supporting Roots, and thank you so much for your kind donations...

Roots Independent Street Team - Facebook

Homelessness is rising in the UK and although the issue runs far deeper than rough sleeping, many Bristolians are aware of the large number of people sleeping on the streets in the city.

Roots Independent Street Team are a Bristol-based homeless outreach group. They provide hot food, cold food, tea, coffee, clothes and toiletries to the rough sleeping community in Bristol. On a busy week they will see around 90-100 people in just the couple of hours that they are set up for, with numbers rising even higher in the bitter cold months.

Roots pride themselves on having a great relationship with the homeless community. Beyond hot food and clothing, they also provide a friendly space for comfortable conversation and a laugh, which is so important to those that may have not spoken to anyone that day.

The support that Roots have received from the fantastic people in Bristol has been absolutely incredible and they manage to run their entire operation almost solely on donations. Any money raised would be so gratefully received, and will go towards:

- Training their volunteers in drugs and mental health

- To do more work to be able to signpost Bristol’s homeless community effectively and safely

- Get matching printed t-shirts for their volunteers so they’re easy to spot and look more like a team!

- Putting some money towards a van so their have their own vehicle, which would make a huge difference to the way the outreach operation is run