Social Bite is a registered charity in Scotland which seeks to alleviate homelessness through innovative solutions from employment and support programmes, to temporary housing and raise funds through their cafes.
You'll find many in some of our major cities including here in Glasgow as well as our sister city, Edinburgh - where it all began.
One of their cafes, located on Argyle Street in Glasgow has been a huge source of help to those less fortune and it seems they are expanding with the charity teasing of a new shop opening soon in the city centre.
But before they do that, they have set their eyes on a new opening - and this time it's in London.
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The new cafe, located in Westminster, will also launch a 'Pay It Forward' scheme which will allow customers to buy a hot drink and/or hot meal for a homeless person.
It is the sixth launched by the homelessness charity and the first outside of Scotland.
According to the Big Issue, they will employ three people who have experienced homelessness as well as employing a full-time support worker who will provide them with practical and emotional support.
Taking to social media this morning to launch one of their new opening, they wrote: "Hello London. Today we open the doors to our new coffee shop in the heart of the city! It will provide jobs with wrap-round support to people who have been homeless. We are expanding our impact and scaling up to truly break the cycle of homelessness."
As many locals flooded to the shop to support the great cause, one Greenock local decided to show his support too.
Martin Compston, best known for his role on BBC's Line of Duty as Steve Arnott and most recently as Bram in ITV's Our House, joined a host of other familiar faces such as Kate Garraway and Martin Kemp as they opened their doors for the first time.
Taking to their website to explain how it all began, Social Bite said: "Founded by Josh Littlejohn MBE and Alice Thompson, Social Bite began life as a small cafe in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August 2012. We became involved in the homelessness issue, when a young homeless man named Peter came into the cafe one day to ask us for a job. When we offered this young man employment, this was the origin of an unexpected 9 years of charitable work and campaigning on the homelessness issue.
"We started to offer more jobs to people experiencing homelessness as we got more engaged in the issue. After a few months, we introduced a 'Pay it Forward' system in the cafes where customers could buy some food in advance for people experiencing homelessness to get later on.
"This has led to us becoming a major employer of people experiencing homelessness and extreme barriers to employment, as well as the largest provider of free freshly made free food in the UK to those in need. We normally give out over 140,000 items of food and hot drinks every year through our network of cafes and have distributed over 800,000 food packs during the pandemic alone. We also have a restaurant, Vesta Bar & Kitchen, formerly called ‘Home’, which opened in 2016 and which provides weekly sit-down meals for an average of 40 people experiencing homelessness and food poverty, as well as training opportunities for our supported employees."
Replying to their posts on social media, one said: "Just saw this on the news! This is a great idea. I have noticed that homelessness seems to keep increasing and it's hard to know what to do about it. I hope more of these stores will open."
Another added: "Well done, and hope it as much of a success as your Edinburgh shop. will certainly call in when iam over in the uk!"
A third commented: "So good to see Social Bite growing!"
You can find your local Social Bite here.
