ShowerBox
ShowerBox was founded by Sarah Lamptey. While volunteering for various homeless organisations, Sarah learned of the huge need for showers in London and set about working out what she could do to help. After a successful fundraising campaign, Sarah was able to buy a trailer and convert it into a mobile shower unit, which has been operating in London ever since. Wanting to help more people around the UK, ShowerBox is now looking to expand in other UK cities such as Birmingham and Manchester.
The ability to clean, to wash the day off yourself, is something many of us are likely to take for granted.
With a history of volunteering with homelessness charities Shelter and Crisis, Sarah learned how much of an impact a lack of access to shower facilities can have on disease and on self-esteem. It pushed her to launch ShowerBox, her own initiative to help homeless people stay clean and safe even if they can’t access a day centre.
She says: “Being clean is such a restorative force. Having a shower, even washing just a couple of days of grime off you, can impact you mentally and change how you feel about yourself. And it’s been shown that you make better choices when you feel good about yourself.”
Sarah crowdfunded money so she could buy a trailer and fix it up before it serviced a shelter on Tottenham Court Road. Its next stop was at a Street’s Kitchen shelter in Hornsey, providing just a little relief for London’s homeless population.
Now, thanks to so many amazing donations, along with wonderful volunteers, Sarah runs a converted shower trailer every Saturday from St Giles Church, London, and 30-35 individuals come to them for showers each session, with twice as many for wellbeing donations.
Now ShowerBox have explored and identified the need for showers in Birmingham, and working alongside existing homeless organisations already doing great work in the area, plan to run showers from a converted van, in 2022.
Our funds will go towards making this happen, helping ShowerBox to buy and convert the van, and take it to the streets.
Find out more about ShowerBox here:
"Thank you so much for choosing ShowerBox as a Grants for Good finalist! People always say to me when they hear about the project, how they'd never thought about how they would feel if they didn't have access to a shower. How out of control they'd feel, how much stigma they imagine they'd receive and how uncomfortable life would be on top of the harshest of challenges of living on the streets. This is the feedback we receive each week from our guests and we work to support as many people as possible in their self-care as we can."
