Why should you give to the KM’s appeal to help the homeless and needy?

The simple answer is your donations will help the increasing number of people who are seeking help because, through no fault of their own, they suddenly can no longer pay the bills.

Our You Can Help appeal, now in its eighth year, helps the Maidstone Day Centre in Knightrider Street.

We are asking shoppers to buy one or two extra cans or packets of non-perishable food and place them in special trolleys in the supermarkets listed on this page.

Maidstone Day Centre does not just provide daytime accommodation and food for homeless people but co-ordinates emergency food parcels for people who are still in their own home but face real struggles to pay the bills.

But staff are noticing an increase in people coming to them because of the global credit crunch.

Day centre trustee and fund-raiser Angela Clay said: “I certainly noticed an increase in people losing jobs or not being able to find a job several months ago, and I think it is only going to get worse.

“We have people coming here who had what you would class as good, skilled jobs and they shouldn’t be in this situation.

“It must be very, very frightening to go from being in charge of your own team of staff to having no job. Who do you go to? People who have had regular work and good jobs do not know we are here.”

You Can Help donations will also help people sleeping rough.

Mrs Clay added: “Government figures do not give the true scale of numbers sleeping rough. They say there are about 400,000 rough sleepers nationally, but we know there are 25-30 in Maidstone at any one time, so the figures do not add up.

“People counting are not allowed, for health and safety reasons, to venture into dangerous areas. But if you are homeless you are not going to lie neatly in a row of doors waiting to be counted.”

She added: “All donations will go towards feeding people who need it. A good meal is often the first stage of getting someone’s life back on the right track.”