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Vending Machine Delivers Food And Clothes To Englands Homeless

NOTTINGHAM, England -- A British nonprofit called Action Hunger is installing a vending machine here that will provide homeless people 24-hour access to food and clothing. Supermarkets, charities and local shops with excess produce will supply the bulk of the products for the machine. It will be stocked daily by volunteers with bottled water, fresh fruit, snacks and sandwiches, along with socks, tissues, antibacterial lotion, toothbrushes and books. Action Hunger will issue "key cards" to as much as 100 ...

November 27, 2017

NOTTINGHAM, England -- A British nonprofit called Action Hunger is installing a vending machine here that will provide homeless people 24-hour access to food and clothing.

Supermarkets, charities and local shops with excess produce will supply the bulk of the products for the machine. It will be stocked daily by volunteers with bottled water, fresh fruit, snacks and sandwiches, along with socks, tissues, antibacterial lotion, toothbrushes and books.

Action Hunger will issue "key cards" to as much as 100 homeless people that will allow each of them to take three free items a day from the machine.

Cameras will monitor the machine to ensure the cards are not misused, and a chip in the cards allows them to be blocked or cancelled if they are lost or stolen. Participants need to check in with the charity's local outreach center at least once a week in order to keep using their cards.

The first machine will be installed in Nottingham in early December. Action Hunger plans to install another machine in Manchester, England, in January, followed by placements in Birmingham and London, and then internationally in New York, Seattle and Los Angeles.