Peterborough family raise almost £800 in two days for homeless charity and city food bank

A Peterborough family has raised almost £800 in two days to pay for food, drink and other essential items to donate to a homeless charity and food bank in the city.

Rabeea Khalil, 39, and her four children Emman, 10, Aizah, 8, Mustafaa, 7 and Raiya, 6, of Millfied, fundraised £775 for charity after they were inspired to help after hearing that a homeless man in the city had died.

Within 48 hours, the family received countless donations to their home after Rabeea first took to social media to urge people to support the family’s campaign.

The family have used the money raised to buy food, drink and other essentials, which they have donated to the homeless charity and Peterborough Food Bank - including 4,000 bottles of water and 15 cases of fizzy drink - 360 cans in total.

‘Overwhelmed’ by the response

“I’ve been overwhelmed,” Rabeea said. “Without people’s donations and people dropping things off at our home, we wouldn’t have been able to have helped in the way we have.

“The Homeless Helpers were desperately short of water.

"In two days we’ve donated 4,000 bottles of water and because we’ve had so much, and they have limited storage, we’ve been able to offer donations to the food bank as well.”

‘We wanted to teach the children that we have to help others’

Rabeea previously cooked hot food for the homeless charity to distribute in Peterborough during lockdown.

She was also part of ‘Books for Gaza’ - where about 5,000 books were donated from Peterborough to the shelves of Samir Mansour Bookshop, which reopened in February this year after being destroyed in the Gaza conflict the previous year.

“It made you realise how privileged and blessed we are in what we have,” she said.

“During lockdown, we heard of people losing their jobs and people struggling for food, and we wanted to teach the children that we have to help others where we’re able to.”

Peterborough Homeless Helpers charity and Peterborough Food Bank continue to urge people to donate what they can at any of their donation hubs.