LAST year 8,000 people joined the world’s largest sleep out in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens, to raise £4 million and call for an end to homelessness in Scotland, and next month the 2018 SocialBite Sleep In The Park will see a group of determined members of Auchterderran and Kinglassie Church involved.

And they need the public to help them raise a minimum of £800.

Sleep In The Park has caused a sea change in the fight against homelessness and funded a raft of major projects. Now the organisers want to keep up the momentum and they are asking 12,000 people across four cities to join in a nationwide sleep out on Saturday December 8.

In 2017 Auchterderran and Kinglassie Church's Jacqueline Lawrie and her daughter Ruth took part in what turned out to be a rather cold night.

But they did not give up and saw it through and now a number of their fellow congregation members want to try it this December.

Said Jacqueline: "Last year my daughter Ruth and I took part in Social Bites Sleep in the Park in Edinburgh sleeping out in Princes Gardens in -7 to raise money to help end homelessness.

"This year we want to try again and we are delighted that Myra Donaldson, our organist at Auchterderran Church, Claire Chrisp, Gregor Aird and my daughter Ruth Calderwood Lawrie will be giving it a go.

"This year Sleep In The Park is been held in four cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen. Our group need to raise a minimum of £800. If anyone would like to donate then they can go to

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/AKPC1"

Sleep Bite's Sleep In The Park is geared to raising money and working together it can accelerate the pace of change in Scotland and create the political mandate to end homelessness here.

Said a spokesperson for Sleep Bite: "We want to make Scotland an example for the whole world to follow.

"We’re a small country. A nation of innovators. The statistics of homelessness in Scotland are not insurmountable."