The team behind a healthy eatery has been quietly offering soup and sleeping bags to homeless people across the north-east.
Lorraine Duthie – manager of Peterhead’s Lettuce Eat Healthy cafe – and her staff have proved that the spirit of Christmas is alive and well in Aberdeenshire.
Teaming-up with volunteers from the community church in Fraserburgh, Mrs Duthie and the cafe staff have been serving soup and snacks on the streets of Aberdeen and Peterhead.
When word of their merry mission got out, dozens of people arrived at the Queen Street cafe with food, sleeping bags, toiletries and gifts for the team to distribute to those less well off.
Mrs Duthie said: “How all this came about was through a conversation with somebody in my shop.
“We were speaking about how much need there is round and about our doorstep.
“It’s in my heart because I met a homeless man sitting outside on Union Street at the McDonald’s. He was in his 70s and that’s stuck with me.
“I thought, there’s not much I can do but we can make soup. So we decided to make soup and go out on to the streets of Aberdeen. The whole thing grew arms and legs.”
The Lettuce Eat Healthy initiative was inundated with gifts warm clothing, and was able to feed 75 people in a single night.
Mrs Duthie added: “For us it wasn’t about glory, I need to stress that, it’s about everyone who’s contributed. It’s about the people who’ve helped and the people we’re helping.”
The volunteers have also been working with the Social Bite cafe in Aberdeen, which employs and assists homeless people in the city.
In Peterhead, Lettuce Eat Healthy donated food parcels to local foodbank Joseph Storehouse in time for Christmas.