Scouts: Sponsored Sleep Out raises thousands of pounds to help homeless people

It was a cold and windy night March but this did not deter the 28th Braid Scouts from their plans to sleep out in cardboard boxes in the garden of Mayfield Salisbury Church. The Scouts have a history of raising funds for Bethany Christian Care Trust to help in their work with homeless people and set out to raise at least £3,000 in sponsorship.

With lots of cardboard and sticky tape, they started in the church hall, building robust structures to stand up to whatever the weather was going to be on a March night in Scotland.

The Leaders provided assistance and then carefully transferred the shelters out into the Church Garden while the Scouts were give something hot to eat and drink. By 10pm all of the Scouts were out and getting themselves settled into their shelters and ready for the night ahead.

All of the Scouts lasted the whole night in their shelters and kept warm. They went to sleep quite quickly and started waking up when it got light just after 6am.

After clearing up, the Scouts were assembled for a group photo and told that the target had not just been achieved but exceeded. The total raised came to £3,718.

Scout Leader, Alan Dickson, commented: ‘I am so proud of the Scouts raising another large amount of money for this worthy cause once again. What made it even more impressive was that so many of the 27 Scouts involved were quite young, some just 10 years old, and some of the older ones doing this for the second time."

He added: "All of the Scouts wanted an adventure but also to help ease the awful plight of homeless people that live in our wealthy city. They demonstrated Scouting values at its best’.