Bedford station hosts colossal community cake sale for homelessness charity

Thameslink staff, Bedford station businesses and the local community pooled their baking skills to fight homelessness on Friday [14 December] with a colossal cake and pastries sale at the station. Bedford station staff and the Bedford-to-St Albans Community Rail Partnership together raised £775 for NOAH, a Luton-based charity providing support for homeless and excluded people.

Home bakers and station retailers produced enough delicacies to cover two groaning rows of trestle tables. Within four hours, generous passengers had bought every item.

Station Manager Joe Healy said: “A big ‘Thank you’ to all the bakers and sellers - this was a great team effort to raise awareness for the homeless in the area. We also had a trolley to collect donations of sleeping bags, hats, gloves et cetera from our passengers. Their generous support of the cake sale will help Noah in getting the homeless off the streets over the Christmas period. It costs £24.00 a night per person so the money raised will go a long way.”

Bedford-to-St Albans City Community Rail Partnership Officer, Andy Buckley, said: "There was a most amazing response to this event, both from Bedford station staff and from our travelling customers. We had two sets of tables selling cakes as there was so much wonderful food contributed, most of which had been sold by mid-morning. The selection boxes with a variety of cakes seemed to go particularly well. We'd like to thank everyone who took part for their generous support and for their contributions to the NOAH Project."

NOAH provides a wide range of support from street outreach and hot meals at their day centre, through temporary accommodation and help with access to health services, to training, work experience and support in work. The charity’s day centre typically serves 40,000 meals a year, so they need every donation they can get to keep that support going.

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