Martello Manor Team to Sleep Out for Local Homeless People

Martello Manor by Boutique Care Homes, situated in Hythe, Kent, is sending ten of its team to sleep out at Hythe Town Football Club from 4pm on Friday 27 November until 7am the next morning. Their aim is to raise £1,000 for Folkestone Rainbow Centre’s homeless services, as part of the charity’s BIG Sleep Out: Your Way.

The night will bring team games and a shelter-building competition, with cardboard donated by local business, GoPak. Hythe Town Football Club, a neighbour the home sponsors, is the venue. Peter Coulson, part of the club’s leadership team, called the sleep out “a very worthwhile cause” and said it would be “a pleasure to build on our relationship with Martello Manor and support this community initiative.” Afterwards, the Rainbow Centre sends a Best Shelter certificate and a thank-you certificate for the team. The Your Way format leaves the date, venue and teammates to each group, but the core is the same everywhere: swap a warm bed for a sleeping bag and a cardboard box, and get sponsored.

Admissions Manager Jude Coveney, who registered the home for the event, spends her days guiding families through choosing care. “Families trust us to care for the person they love most,” she says. “The Rainbow Centre gives that same care to people who have no one, and I wanted us beside them.”

The Rainbow Centre’s own published story shows who that care reaches. Alfie, 65, lost the caravan he was living in and everything he owned, and ended up sleeping rough in the district. At the Rainbow Centre he could shower, change into fresh clothes and have breakfast each weekday. In November 2023 he was given a place in the Winter Shelter, with a bed and a cooked meal every night, and he has since moved into sheltered housing, where the charity still supports him.

Dianne, a Rainbow Centre volunteer who took part in an earlier BIG Sleep Out, called her night “a real eye-opener to the needs of the homeless”. Lying with only cardboard around her, she was struck by having “no front door to lock.” That small insight is what the night is meant to give, and the money raised goes to the Homeless Support Service, FoodStop and Winter Shelter.

Home Manager Marlene Abreu and Head Chef Boby Pereira are among those sleeping out alongside Jude. “We spend every day making a place feel like home,” says Marlene, and giving up beds for a night is “a small thing to do for people who don’t have one to go back to.” Boutique Care Homes is donating £250 towards the £1,000 target. Marlene’s ask to Hythe is simple: “We’ll be doing it together, and we’d love the town to sponsor us.”

The home’s effort reaches past the night itself. Martello Manor is becoming a drop-off point for unwanted winter coats, which will be donated to homeless people, and residents, families and community knitters are being invited to make hats and scarves.

There are three ways to help. Sponsor the team on its JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/page/martello-manor-big-sleep-out. Drop an unwanted winter coat at Martello Manor, 18 Farmer Road, Hythe. Or get knitting, and add a hat or scarf to the collection.

At Martello Manor, care is meant to be so good it speaks for itself, and it does not stop at the front door. Not just care. Life, thriving: for the people who live in the home, and for the town around it.