Around 40 Yorkshire foodies are sleeping rough in Leeds on Monday to raise awareness of Simon on the Streets

Monday is traditionally chefs night off, but  Yorkshire foodies gave a night off to sleep rough on the streets of Leeds.

Chef Stephanie Moon is normally associated with whizzing up culinary masterpieces in the kitchen, but she has another passion as well as food.

This year Steph became patron of homeless charity Simon on the Street and pledged to everything she could to raise awareness and money for the charity.

She was be joined by around 40 fellow chefs, food writers and people from the foodie world in A Taste of Rough Sleeping in Leeds city centre to raise around £8,000 for Simon on the Streets.

Simon on the Streets was started in Leeds in 1999, expanding to Huddersfield and Bradford more recently. It receives not one penny of government funding.

Steph Moon first got involved with the charity when she met Simon on the Streets general manager Helen Beadnell. She helped with their soup run in Leeds and was then asked to become patron.

“I really wanted to do something different and so I thought it would be great to use my contacts in the food world to come together to raise money and awareness of Simon on the Streets.”

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Steph set about recruiting friends and colleagues in the food world to join her on a sponsored “rough sleep” in Leeds on Monday from 9.30pm to 5.30am.

Staff from Rudding Park, where Steph was executive chef, joined her, as well as from the Devonshire Arms, Bettys, Leeds City College as well as food writers such as Elaine Lemm and Gilly Robinson.

To sponsor Steph and friends visit www.justgiving.com/search?q=taste%20of%20sleeping%20rough

www.simononthestreets.co.uk

About The Author

Catherine Scott is Associate Features Editor for Yorkshire Post Newspapers. A self-confessed foodie, she is also a judge of the Deliciousyorkshire/Yorkshire Post Taste Awards.

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