I absolutely love Cardiff, it's such an amazing city and I love nothing more than spending hours walking around the city centre, looking through the shops, catching a show or having coffee with friends. How lucky am I that I am able to do that? I'm always reminded just how lucky I am when I see a homeless person, as you do in many cities, sitting huddled in a doorway in the cold. Cardiff is a lovely city full of lovely people who won't often walk by, I often see them buying cups of coffee or tea and I myself have given food to people as I have gone past.
The best way to support homeless people though is to donate to a charity that works specifically with the homeless. There are three such brilliant charities working to help the homeless of Cardiff -ย Huggard, Llamau and The Wallich. You can find out more about what each of them do here. They work to break the cycle of homelessness and to help prevent it happening in the first place.
St Davidโs Shopping Centre has teamed up with cult Cardiff brand, I Loves The โDiff for the We Loves The โDiff appeal. The campaign makes it really easy to do your bit to help these brilliant charities. Each week from the 29th April to the 27th May 2017 We Loves The 'Diff are giving away an exclusive limited edition print that celebrates Cardiff. There's a different one released each week and you can pick up yours on the bottom floor of the St David's Centre, near Clogau or Watches of Switzerland in return for a minimum donation of ยฃ3.
These prints are exclusive to this appeal and can't be bought anywhere else. There are only 1000 of each print so I'd recommend getting there early to snag yours like we did!
We've got our hands on two of the prints already and they are fantastic, brilliant quality and you even get a We Loves The 'Diff tote bag to carry your print in and use for your shopping later.
This Saturday 20th May the exclusive 'Keepers of the Wall' print is available so head down between 11-6 to grab your copy and make that all important donation. Be quick though because when they are gone they are gone and this one is bound to be popular.
ย Locals and visitors alike love looking along Cardiff Castle's Animal Wall which was designed by architect William Burges. These animals are iconic to Cardiff and I know my children are fascinated by them. This print would look stunning in any Cardiffian's home.
I know I'll be heading in to make a donation and grab a copy. I really love the print that will be available next week too so will be picking that up too, Little Miss J wants to make the donation this time, she's an emotional child and she really feels for the plight of the homeless.
If you can't get into Cardiff to pick up a print but still want to support this great cause you can donate online here. You won't get a print of course but you'll be helping some of the very neediest people and the top three online donors will receive all 5 prints framed - it pays to be generous!
Disclosure - this post is written in associationย with the St David's Centre Cardiff and we are proud to be helping to support such a great campaign.
wha2wear
lovely post. Homeless people is a topic that interests me too. Specially nowadays, we seem not to realize how lucky we are with what we already got x
Ashleigh Dougherty
This is such a lovely idea. I'd love to see more of these popping up in my home city of London!
Gareth Torrance
What a great idea! Around here everyone just tends to ignore the homeless.......
Sarah Bailey
What an amazing thing for them to be doing, it is great the homeless are being looked after in some way, as I think it is very sad we do have homeless on our streets at all.
Mellissa Williams
I saw these people in St Davids 2 on Sunday but didn't realise what they were doing. Anything that helps the homeless in an organised way like this is amazing
We Made This Life
It's great isn't it! They are there the next two Saturdays if you are around.
Mummy Times Two
Beautiful prints and a truly wonderful way of supporting people who really need the help x
We Made This Life
They are lovely prints aren't they!
Cardiff Mummy Says - Cathryn
We have been supporting this campaign too. It's such a great way to support homeless people and great to see two such big companies working together for an important cause. I love the prints. X
We Made This Life
It's a fantastic way to support these charities. I'm pleased you're supporting it too ๐
BattleMum
Such a great cause. We've always given to homeless people when in Cardiff. I know it's not necessarily great to give them money but we always did, both directly and to the Big Issue sellers and leave them with the change. I watched a student documentary about the homeless in Cardiff a few months back and it was very emotional. Had we been staying in South Wales I'd have liked to volunteer. I'll be looking into the online donation now, thanks for sharing the link Ali x
We Made This Life
I think you have to do what you can when you see them. It's great that they have an online donation option for people who can't get into the centre.
Newcastle Family Life
This is a great idea, the prints are lovely. I think we need something like this in Newcastle as there is so many homeless people xx
We Made This Life
It's a brilliant idea isn't it!
Lynne Harper
What a great post. I worked with homeless people myself for a few years and helping others is very rewarding as well as knowing your trying to help someone's life in general
We Made This Life
Definitely, I love helping others where I can.
serenityyou
This sounds like such a good campaign. It was only at the weekend that I saw a security guard moving on a homeless man who was trying to take shelter in a car park
We Made This Life
Aw that's so sad.
laurasidestreet
This is such a fantastic homegrown campaign and have loved seeing this in the centre. That print looks cool too, will try pick one up if they still have some left when I am next in the city
Laura x