Facebook homeless charity duo get Yorkshire Hero award on Yorkshire Day

Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:00

A man and a woman who set up a Facebook page to help coordinate support for the homeless in Leeds were today, that is Yorkshire Day, co-named Yorkshire Hero 2017.

Marie Butler, 50, and David Hedley, 51, set up Homeless Leeds Support Group Yorkshire in the winter of 2015 after David posted about a homeless man he had seen on his way to work.

The pair held their first soup kitchen on the steps of Leeds Town Hall on Christmas Day 2015, and the group has grown to include support from dozens of volunteers and a number of businesses, including supermarket Morrisons and bakers Greggs.

The group, which provides regular soup kitchens and supplies clothing and sleeping bags to the city’s homeless, has been so successful it has now expanded to neighbouring towns and cities including York, Bradford, Doncaster, Rotherham and Wakefield.

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