About 1,200 homeless people could be impacted after a charity’s only van broke down this morning -and the founder has appealed for vital public support.
Tony Walsh of Feed Our Homeless, which has a soup kitchen and outreach teams, has urged the public to back a crowdfunding page so they can purchase another vehicle.
And the charity has also appealed to garages to consider a partnership with them as they “urgently” need to get their frontline services up and running again.
Mr Walsh said: “We have one service van on the road and we support up to 400 people any night we carry out our services.
“We collect our food from a lot of charity partners all over the country and we distribute food to families in need every single week.
“We’ve been in the planning [stage] to purchase a second van since last year and we were trying to raise the money.
“We’ve been driving the van 24-7 and on [Wednesday] morning the van broke down and there’s a serious engine problem.
Mr Walsh said unfortunately the van cannot be fixed until next week because the mechanic has to order parts for the engine.
He added: “It’s been a wake-up call. Our frontline services have now been cancelled.
“We can’t deliver food and we can’t pick up donations that we badly need this week.
“A lot of people depend on us and we’re trying to raise €10,000 so we have a reliable second van.”
Anybody who wants to make a donation to the Dublin-based charity can do so here .
