More than 2,000 people have signed up to a rough sleeping event dubbed ‘’Live Aid’’ for the homeless, raising £500,000 in less than a month.
Organisers hope the Sleep in the Park event in December will eventually see around 9,000 people camp overnight at Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh to raise cash for charitable organisation Social Bite.
Liam Gallagher, Sir Bob Geldof and John Cleese are among the stars expected to take part.
Social Bite co-founder Josh Littlejohn said: “I am blown away by the kindness of Scotland. It’s been an incredible response to see over 2,000 sign up to take part in Sleep in the Park in just three weeks, raising £500,000 in the process.
“We raised half a million pounds last year at our CEO Sleep Out, and to match this in such a short space of time is testament to the compassion of the people getting behind the event.”
Organisers have set a fundraising target of £4 million for the event and hope it can become the world’s largest ever sleep-out.
Musicians including Wonderwall singer Gallagher, Amy Macdonald, Deacon Blue and Frightened Rabbit will perform acoustic ‘’busker’’ sets at the Ross Bandstand in the gardens.
Mr Littlejohn added: “I’d like to thank those who are already taking part in Sleep in the Park, but would urge others to do the same and join us.
“Our target amount of £4 million will be invested into housing solutions, addiction support and employment programmes to support a large number of people out of homelessness and back into society where they belong.”
Members of the public can join Sleep in the Park on Saturday December 9 by committing to fundraising at least £100.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here