The lead singer of Snow Patrol, Gary Lightbody, has given \u00a320,000 (\u20ac22,957) to a soup kitchen in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
The Lightbody Foundation gave the donation to People\u2019s Kitchen Belfast, which the organisation said \u201cwill allow us to continue to offer all our services particularly during the winter months and at a time when we are under extreme pressure\u201d.<\/p>\n
They added: \u201cWe are very thankful to Gary for his support, we are open again in the morning from 8.30am to provide support and advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
On St Stephen’s Day, the organisation said it had seen the \u201chighest amount of rough sleepers\u201d it had ever experienced since opening in 2017.<\/p>\n
A total of 72 people were estimated to be sleeping rough in Northern Ireland, representing a 60 per cent increase from the 2023 figure of 45, according to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.<\/p>\n
The Lightbody Foundation is comprised of Lightbody\u2019s sister, Sarah, friends Davy Matchett and Candice Cathers, as well as John D\u2019Arcy, one of the founder members of the Oh Yeah Centre, a local music hub in Belfast.<\/p>\n
In a statement on the foundation\u2019s website, Lightbody has said the charity \u201chas no remit\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe\u2019ll give to causes across the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cMental health, education, music, dementia, sport, cancer and disease research and many other things\u2026 I don\u2019t want to narrow our focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe focus is Northern Ireland, countrywide.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross communities and divides.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lead singer of Snow Patrol, Gary Lightbody, has given \u00a320,000 (\u20ac22,957) to a soup kitchen in Northern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-258558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115810181015670340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}