The shelter feeding 150 people on Christmas day with the help of online shoppers

This year the Birmingham Christmas Shelter is set to welcome a record number of people through its doors over the festive period. Every day from Christmas Eve until December 28th the shelter is expecting around 150 guests seeking a hot meal and warm place to stay when many other services shut.

Simon Rixon, one of the trustees at the shelter, says demand this Christmas has skyrocketed due to the cost-of-living crisis, a lack of housing provision, and the closure of other shelters and hostels locally.

“In recent years demand has gone up massively. The number of provisions we need and the number of volunteers we need is growing year on year,” he says.

New figures by the housing charity Shelter show a record 354,000 people, including nearly 20,000 in Birmingham, will spend Christmas homeless this year. According to the charity’s annual report, there are currently 18,292 families in temporary accommodation in Birmingham, including 10,598 homeless children.

In a bid to meet demand, the Birmingham Christmas Shelter, which depends entirely on donations and volunteers, is being supported year-round by online shoppers raising funds via the easyfundraising website and app where it is a listed cause.

Those who want to raise funds for the Birmingham Christmas Shelter simply need to sign up to easyfundraising, select the shelter as their chosen cause, and then do their online shopping via the platform with more than 8,000 retailers offering free cashback donations.

When supportive shoppers do their online shopping via easyfundraising, the retailers bought from donate a percentage of their purchase to the shelter without adding any extra expense to their bill.

Discussing how easyfundraising shoppers help the shelter, Simon, 53, says: “If people spend a pound here and there on easyfundraising it all adds up. Every time you shop with retailers via the site, like Tesco, eBay and John Lewis, you keep giving. I bought my TV from Currys and generated a donation through that purchase.

“If you’re booking a two or three grand holiday via easyfundraising a percent of that going to us is massive and it doesn’t cost you any extra. It goes from say Booking.com, to easyfundraising and then straight to us.”

This year the shelter, which first opened in 1974, is located at St Catherine of Siena Catholic Primary School, just off Bristol Street in Birmingham. It will be open 24 hours over Christmas week and offer guests three hot meals a day, including a vegetarian option, plus a tea and sandwich bar.

Local service providers will be on site offering footcare, hairdressing, holistic therapies, beauty treatments and consultations to help people find accommodation. Volunteer DJ’s, comedians, singers and bands are also set perform across the week.

As easyfundraising’s cause of the year for 2024 the shelter received £9,000 raised through the platform’s fundraising activities and business purchases. The additional funds mean the shelter is also able to offer guests access to an on-site mobile dental unit for the first time in 2024.

Describing the shelter, Simon from Birmingham, says: “There’s a sense of connection, warmth and compassion. It’s about giving someone, who may be lonely or desperate, somewhere to go on Christmas day which can be the worst day of all if you’ve lost someone.”

Simon says one lady who uses the shelter made him a thank you card last Christmas.

“Things like that you can’t put a price on. The gratitude is unbelievable,” he says.

The Birmingham Christmas Shelter has raised more than £1,700 through supportive shoppers on easyfundraising.

More than £57 million has been raised for over 190,000 good causes and charities via easyfundraising since 2007, with more and more online shoppers signing up each day.

Visit the easyfundraising website to sign up and get involved.