HOMELESS people in Glasgow and Edinburgh will be able to enjoy a Christmas dinner this year, thanks to a social enterprise.
Josh Littlejohn, who set up sandwich shop chain Social Bite, will be taking on the role of Santa Claus with his team of helpers when the shops open at Christmas exclusively for homeless people.
The social enterprise, which donates 100 per cent of their profits to charity and employs people from homeless backgrounds, revealed their shop in St Vincent in Glasgow will be open on Christmas Eve and Edinburgh's Rose Street outlet on Christmas Day.
Social Bite, which now has four shops in Scotland, have partnered with the daily deals website Itison.com to offer people the chance to buy a homeless person a Christmas dinner.
A donation of £5 will pre-pay for the festive dinner and also give the buyer a free coffee in Social Bite in the new year.
Social Bite aim to raise enough funds on Itison not only to pay for the Christmas dinner, but also to put food aside for homeless people for months into 2015.
Social Bite co-founder Josh Littlejohn said; "Since we announced this idea on Facebook, the post went viral and was shared over 5,000 times. We have had hundreds of offers from strangers looking to volunteer, people offering Christmas gifts like warm jackets to give away, and others offering to donate the money they had planned to spend to a Christmas trees and decorations to our Christmas dinner fund."
Mr Littlejohn added; "It goes to show you that the Christmas spirit is alive and well, and there is an incredible appetite to help others out there."
Social Bite, founded just over two years ago, donates 100 per cent of its profits to charity and one in four of its employees is from a homeless background. Itison is waiving all fees for the promotion.
A spokesman for Social Bite said; "In an age where Christmas has increasingly become centred around commercialism, big business using sentimental ads to sell products and eating until you are fit to burst, a Scottish social enterprise is serving up a bit of old fashioned Christmas spirit.
"Josh Littlejohn and co-founder Alice Thompson will be at the Social Bite shops on both days, spending their Christmas with those with nowhere else to be."
Itison founder Oli Norman said he was "delighted" to support Social Bite in their campaign to help the most vulnerable people in Scotland. "Through our daily deals website we hope to help them raise enough money to feed the homeless in Edinburgh and Glasgow this Christmas and well into 2015."
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