A STAGGERING 4,000 tins of soup have been donated to a city homeless shelter following an online campaign.

The tins are helping to keep the county’s homeless in the pink after a plea by staff at St Paul’s Hostel in Tallow Hill, Worcester.

Donna King, acting hostel chief executive, started the soup challenge in a bid to save cash for the taxpayer-funded night assessment centre – known as the night shelter – which runs every winter at the Maggs Day Centre in Deansway.

Initially she posted a message on her Facebook page asking for donations of one tin per person, just before the shelter opened.

“Our budget to run the night shelter comes from the taxpayer, and so every penny is vital,” she said.

“Because it was such a cold start to the winter, we opened the shelter earlier than usual and so we wanted to save as much budget money as possible.

“So we thought it was a good idea to get the soup donated, as we wouldn’t spend the budget on paying for it.”

The shelter uses about 10 tins of soup each night and has been open since December.

But what started as a trickle of cans soon turned into an avalanche as Mrs King’s friends online started re-posting the request to their friends.

To date, the hostel has received 4,000 cans through its Soup Challenge, including generous donations from the county’s churches.

“The University of Worcester is getting involved as well, so we’ll have students buying into the idea,” said Mrs King.

The giving spirit has not ended with soup, as Worcester Lions members handed over tea, coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits for the night shelter’s needy visitors.

Mrs King says any tinned soup not used by the end of March, when the shelter closes, will be used at the main hostel where lunch is provided free for residents – or for the shelter when it reopens in December.

Tins can be donated by dropping them in at the hostel in Tallow Hill. For details, visit stpaulshostel.co.uk