A festive feel good factor as St George's Crypt cook up special Christmas dinners for those in need in Leeds

The event was held at St George’s Crypt for service users who are getting their lives back on track after being on the streets and facing issues with drug and alcohol addiction.

For the last four years, the YEP and sister paper The Yorkshire Post has, along with food wholesaler Bidfood, cooked up and dished out four-course Christmas dinners including soup, turkey with all the trimmings, Christmas pudding, gateaux and mince pies.

Organiser Adele Little came up with the idea while she was working at the papers after seeing a friend run a similar project in Manchester.

“When I was working at The Yorkshire Post we used to get donations of things and started to think what we could do with them,” she said.

“I used to work in a soup kitchen and it came to me that we could help the homeless. A lot of the donations were alcohol so we raffled them off and raised about £3,000.

“We emailed organisations working with the homeless and only St George’s Crypt got back to us and that is how we continued to work with them. The work they do is amazing.”

As well as the festive feed, the service users who attended the dinner were given a rucksack filled with everyday toiletries such as shampoo, shower-gel and deodorant and warm items like hats and gloves which had ben donated by JPIMedia colleagues and friends.

They were also given a Christmas present and a handwritten Christmas card.

Adele said the dinner guests are always a wide variety of people, aged from 15 to 80, and typically include people just out of prison, women leaving abusive relationships and veterans.

Of this year’s event, Adele said: “It was an absolutely great afternoon. It is just an uplifting experience and a great opportunity for them to open up and talk to someone as for some it can be a long time since they had that.

“To motivate yourself when you are that down is hard and we give them something to help them have a good day.”