We were met by Alison from Nightstop and one of her volunteers with a huge bag of leaflets and a request for us to deliver as many as we could on our run. Alison also told us more about what Nightstop does (read more below) and why these leaflet drops are needed - to find more volunteer hosts.

Joel led us out along the bunny walks up to Springfield where we passed Ian, who we hope will be back soon!

We started on Arun Close, followed by Humber Road (about 25% of Chelmsford's houses according to Andy and Russell), followed by many of the streets and their little cul-de-sacs named after places in the South West.

Based on Joel's estimate, the team delivered leaflets to somewhere between 300 and 350 houses. I never thought we would get through the huge number of leaflets I filled my bag with, but we did!

About Nightstop:

Nightstop volunteer hosts open their homes to young homeless people facing a night on the streets or sleeping in an unsafe place. Volunteer drivers and chaperones ensure these young people get to a place of safety.

It is a unique project which relies on community hosting to provide a safe, welcoming place for young homeless people in crisis. Communities and charities run Nightstop services in more than 30 locations around the UK, led and supported by the Nightstop team at Depaul UK, a national charity for homeless people. In 2019, volunteers provided 9,103 safe nights of accommodation to 937 people across the Nightstop network.