Liverpool in Arms, a charity dedicated to helping the homeless and those in need, provides hot meals, drinks, and essential supplies to hundreds of people every week. The organization's story began five years ago with a simple act of kindness, and has since grown into a powerful force for good in the community.
Standing outside Primark on Monday (February 3) night broke my heart, seeing how many people were waiting to receive the basic necessities we take for granted every day. Each week, Liverpool in Arms voluntarily get together to feed those who are either sleeping rough, or simply can’t afford a cup of soup that week. It started five years ago when Neilson Mail, 50, from Speke , was asked to help a lady bring “bags full” of sandwiches into Liverpool city centre to feed homeless people.
Knowing he needed to do something, Neilson then went on to found Liverpool in Arms, a charity which helps homeless people across our city and I spent Monday night seeing exactly what they do. We gathered outside Primark on Church Street from 7pm, where a queue of people had already formed down the street, grabbing the necessities they needed for the cold night ahead, before filling up on possibly the first bit of hot food they’d had that day. In a matter of 45 minutes, we'd fed close to 80 people, who either had nothing or simply couldn’t afford to eat that day. Telling me the story of how he got started, while constantly being asked for sleeping bags or hats by people patiently waiting, Neilson said: “I was asked to help a lady who was literally carrying bags into town with sandwiches. Anica Oaks, she is called. “She said ‘I’m sick of going to town and seeing people who are genuinely starving.’ So off her own back she started bringing people sandwiches, she would get on the bus twice a day with bags of sandwiches to feed people. “I got asked to take all her butties into town because she’d posted on Facebook asking for help and someone threw me under the bus to help out because it was growing, she got overwhelmed and couldn’t do it alone any more and of course I did. And that is how it started.” He added: “We used to get carts and walk around town with food . I was doing this for about two years with Anica, but I wanted to grow it. So through word of mouth and advertising it grew and now we’re feeding a minimum of 60 to 100 people per night. Every person will get two soups, a hot meal, a fresh sandwich - we do a veg option - a treat, cakes, biscuits, a dessert and a hot drink.” By 7.20pm, that's 20 minutes after the team arrived on Monday night, everything had almost gone. “It was like Boot’s Chemist 20 minutes ago,” says Neilson, pointing at the empty floor, which was packed with bags and bags of toiletries just minutes earlier. The team told me that this was a quiet night but it’s hard to believe having seen the size of the queue of people, snaking down the street, waiting to receive clean socks, underwear and toiletries. Standing there, the realisation of how many people this group of volunteers help each week hit me and it made me feel incredibly sad to see just how many people need this kind of help and happy at the same time to see the amazing work these people are doing. It’s not just homeless people they’re feeding. Neilson’s wife, Clare Mail, who also volunteers at the organisation, said: “We try to help people personally and be friendly with them. One lady who comes, she recently had breast cancer and has nobody to go to her appointments with her so we’ve arranged for one of our ladies to go with her to her appointment. She’s got nobody. This is the kind of things we want to do, we try to get personal with them and help out as much as we can.” Neilson added: “It’s not just homeless people either, we have a group of pensioners who come. There are people in the queue who will come and be honest and say look I’ve got a house but I’m just skint, they have houses and can pay their gas and electricity but they can’t afford to live. It's a scary time.” While I was standing there, one woman came to receive food and drink with no shoes on. She had been walking around on the hard, dirty pavement in the cold temperatures with only socks on. Neilson asked one of his volunteers to go to a shop to get her some shoes. One man asked Neilson for a neck warmer to keep him warm while he spent the evening in the cold. He told him he would buy him one for Wednesday night - when they next return to the city centre with hot food, drinks and necessities. But all this comes from fundraising, done by Neilson, his wife and their team of volunteers. The team is often supported by local venues such as pastry shop, Lunko , pizzeria, Franco Manca and coffee shop Fika, who provide hot food and sweet treats for the team to hand out weekly. But, the star of the show is their youngest - and longest running - volunteer, twelve-year-old Jimmy Birtles, who started dedicating his time to volunteer at the organisation when he was just eight. Each week, the schoolboy bakes treats which he gives to those in need and I’m also told the incredible little boy gave his packed lunch, made for him by his mum for school, to a person who he saw sleeping rough on the street. Jimmy told me: “I’ve made cake pops for them this wee
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