London homeless calendar launching Thursday

With face-to-face sales cancelled, homeless photographers will earn 50% commission from online sales - £5 per calendar sold - of the 2021 MyLondon calendar being launched in Liverpool Street Station on Thursday.

The 30-day CROWDFUNDER will sell beautiful calendars and will also raise money for Local Covid-19 homeless initiatives related to helping keep people in housing and off the streets.

Supported by TfL Rail Community Ambassadors wearing PPE, we are standing with banners to launch the annual calendar with a 30-day crowdfunder in front of platforms 15-17 of Liverpool Street Station from 7.30am on Thursday 17 September. Interviews with Cafe Art co-founder Paul Ryan can be done at street level. 

Contact Paul Ryan 07517 141 948 or email paul@cafeart.org.uk

Seven years of handing out 100 cameras to people who have experienced homelessness have resulted in a beautiful fundraising calendar.

See PREVIEW of project (this will go live on 17 September)

The 2021 MyLondon calendar, and a sister publication the 2021 MyWorld calendar, will not only support local homeless initiatives, but it will employ dozens of photographers whose photographs and narratives feature in them.

See all 24 photos and captions here

The project is run by a small London social enterprise called Cafe Art. Their first project was framing and hanging art by homeless people in cafes, and giving the earnings from sales to the artists. The MyLondon calendar has inspired similar projects in many other cities. The 2021 MyWorld calendar will be a joint effort and raise money for those projects in Budapest, New Orleans, London, Sao Paulo, Sydney and Toronto. 

The calendars, cards and photographs will be sold exclusively online this year, starting with a crowdfunder on Thursday 17 September. The launch will happen in Liverpool Street Station with the support of volunteers.

Paul Ryan, co-founder of Cafe Art says: "Because of the risk of a second spike in Covid-19 we can't risk the health of the regular vendors, but we are giving them codes to give to their regular customers for the online shop. If the customers use the code they will give the usual 50% commission to the vendor."

The calendars will sell for £9.99 each during the 30-day crowdfunder, the greeting cards for £9.99 for a set of four and the photograph enlargements will be £19.99 each. All proceeds will go to the photographers affected by homelessness and Covid-19 support services.

The public can support vendors affected by homelessness by giving a special promotional code when they buy, enabling the vendors to earn £5 from each £10 product sold. Several vendors have lost their seasonal jobs of selling the calendar face-to-face this year because of Covid-19 social distancing rules.