Nearly Christmas

Our last week in the Centre until the New Year. A charity called Homeless and Rootless at Christmas (H. A. R. C.) opens on Christmas Eve until the New Year where people like our clients can go and get food and meet people during the day. It allows our staff team to get a good rest as we are all feeling very tired.

It’s been a very hard year with the weather for our clients. Apart from an early hot spell it has been either extremely wet and most people will remember the coverage on the News of how badly Sheffield was affected or like now very cold. There doesn’t seem to have been a break for them at all. Normally the summer months give clients a break from the monotony of life on the streets. This hasn’t happened this year and it has brought the most ardent rough sleeper to their knees. As we are often the only people our clients see or engage with here at Ben's we have to cope with a lot of their frustration and anger, and what seems to them, and sometimes us too, insurmountable problems. But then something happens and completely lifts you and you forget a lot of the difficulties and frustrations.

Friday was an amazing wonderful lovely day!! (Forgive all the adjectives). A beautiful event took place in one of our client’s lives. Unfortunately because of confidentiality I can’t write any details but take it from me it was SOOOO good and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. As a team here it was incredible as this was after years of hard work and lots of disappointments. For us it was a highlight to highlight ALL highlights! An amazing end to what has been quite a difficult year due mainly to the weather. We ended the week on a high.

We began a new week today with some clients making gingerbread houses. They had such a lovely time making them. They took a lot of time and patience but the clients were rewarded when they saw the amazing results.