Staff from North-east catering business Entier have set their sights on raising more than £6,000 as they take part in social enterprise Social Bite’s ‘Sleep In The Park’ Aberdeen event.
A seven-strong team representing the Westhill-headquartered company will camp out in Duthie Park on Saturday, December 8, as part of an initiative aimed at helping raise funds to end homelessness in Scotland for good.
Similar events to the one in Aberdeen will be taking place in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee on the same evening with 12,000 people expected to take part in total.
In addition to the mass sleep-outs, musical performances will take place in each city with Scottish musicians Amy Macdonald and KT Tunstall being transported by helicopter to play in all four.
The Aberdeen event will also feature singer-songwriters Eddi Reader and Kris Drever as well as Edinburgh band, Adam Homes & The Embers.
Entier already supports homeless people in Aberdeen by delivering food on a weekly basis to local charity, Aberdeen Cyrenians and is taking part in Sleep In The Park to build on its existing efforts.
Peter Bruce, Entier’s CEO is one of the team sleeping out in Duthie Park. He said: “By donating in-date food to Aberdeen Cyrenians we are helping a number of people less fortunate than ourselves get a nutritious meal, while also reducing food waste.
“Taking part in this year’s Sleep In The Park event will give us the opportunity to do even more to help the homeless both locally and across Scotland.
“The number of people currently living on the streets in this country is both shocking and unacceptable. We want to do what we can to help change that.”
Social Bite aims to raise £6m from the four events.
Social Bite founder, Josh Littlejohn said: “We are hugely encouraged that so many businesses and individuals across Scotland have chosen to support the event and the cause, both by taking part and through fundraising.”
Headquartered in Edinburgh, Social Bite runs a chain of sandwich shops and restaurants throughout Scotland, employing more than 100 people, many of whom have struggled with homelessness. It is the largest distributor of free, fresh food to the homeless in the UK giving out over 140,000 items of food and hot drinks per year.
Established in 2008 and employing 591 people, Entier is Scotland’s largest independent, privately-owned catering company, operating across 22 countries.
For more information about Sleep In The Park 2018 visit www.sleepinthepark.co.uk