Every year £100,000’s worth of camping equipment is left behind at Bramham Park by Leeds Festival goers. A number of organisations travel to the site to collect things and distribute them to homeless charities, refugees and Leeds communities. In our first year with one van and three people, we collected £700 worth of stuff for the, at the time, new BuyNowtLS6 Library of Things.

Last year we scaled up massively and had two vans and three vehicles, 30 volunteers and in three hours got £5,000 worth of stuff, only limited by van space!

This year we are working with even more community partners (St Lukes Cares, Surplus to Purpose, Hyde Park Source, Seagulls Paint and many others) and we’ve got approximately 10 large vans this year, so we are really excited to be able to bring back even more than we did last year to communities in Leeds.

We are hoping to collect £50,000 worth of equipment this year and bring it back to Leeds to use in a new Library of Things in South Leeds, and give to foodbanks and homeless charities across the city.

Salvaged equipment available includes tents, sleeping bags, roll mats, air mattresses, bedding, gazebos, chairs, and cookware. There are also a lot of broken tents that could be upcycled into a number of things instead of being landfilled. It is simply a lot of colourful ripstop waterproof fabric that could be turned into anything.

If you’d like to help us get more items from Leeds Festival please email jpgaitchison@gmail.com or complete this survey https://forms.gle/72Rb7fPESjxXQ33UA

You can also contact:

HIDDEN HOMELESS – LEEDS UK

Helping Hands UK

Homeless Hampers

Yorkshire Aid – Will also be salvaging equipment for their organisations and are also looking for volunteers.

South Leeds Library of Things

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