Clooney launches new fundraising campaign for homeless people

The actor visited Edinburgh last month after accepting an invitation from the owner of sandwich shop Social Bite, where he recorded a video message pledging the first £5 for the appeal.

While in the city, he met staff who were once homeless but now have jobs in the chain of shops which donates all its profits to charity. The Christmas campaign also features a message of support from Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, with other pledges coming from Olympic legend Sir Chris Hoy, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, comedian Rob Brydon, broadcaster Chris Evans and Scotland football manager Gordon Strachan.

Bosses are hoping this year’s drive will go a step further than the previous campaign, which raised enough to feed the homeless for a year across three cities.

Josh Littlejohn, Social Bite’s co-founder, said: “Last year we asked the public to pay £5 to allow us to open on Christmas Day and give local homeless people a place to go for a good meal.

“Our target was to provide 800 meals. We were amazed by the response and received over 36,000 donations from all over the world meaning we not only fed folk at Christmas, we were able to feed them all year round in all five of our shops.When George visited our shop last month, we asked him to make the first donation and with such a global star on film supporting us, we’re hoping we can smash last year’s total and help even more people.”

Social Bite operates a “suspended” coffee and food programme where customers can pay for a hot drink or food for a homeless person.