YOUNG homeless people could go hungry this Christmas because a charity which cares for them has lost its stock of food.

The items — collected by Hampshire Youth Bureau— were stored in a cellar which was hit by a mystery flood last week.

Around £20,000 of stock, most of which came from school harvest festival collections, will now have to be destroyed.

The supplies, which also included toiletries, were enough to help homeless 16 to 25 year-olds, who are at their most vulnerable over the winter period, for a year.

They were in the cellar at the youth bureau’s headquarters in Victoria Road, Aldershot.

Water which flooded into the room last week only damaged items on the floor, but the entire stock could be contaminated and will have to be thrown away.

Bureau manager Mark Barron said: “It’s a great loss and I’m not understating it when I say that we are genuinely devastated because so much work goes into this project.

“We spend a lot of time collecting the food and toiletries and going into schools and talking to the children about what we do. It’s a lot of work for the staff and volunteers.

“I could honestly sit here and cry and the day it’s all cleared I probably will, because it’s just soul-destroying.

“The generosity of people who donated for harvest festival and watching the children do their assemblies and bring their packages to us was fantastic.

“All of that was so fulfilling and to see all of that go to waste is just terrible.”

Hampshire Youth Bureau helped 500 young people in the last three months, with 70% of those asking for help with finding somewhere to live.

It is likely that homeless teenagers will be hit hardest by the charity losing its stock of supplies. They cannot automatically claim benefits and often rely on charity donations until they can be housed.

Mr Barron said: “You cannot get access benefits until you are 18, unless you can prove that you are separated from your family.

“While that is being investigated there is a transitional period where those young people are entirely dependent upon services like ours.

“We’re trying to be upbeat and make sure that it’s business as usual.

“In the short term we’re looking for support from other providers but people will go hungry — there’s no doubt about that.”

The charity had collected the donations from 35 schools and five churches in the News area.

It is not known what caused the flood which seeped through the cellar’s brick walls.

One theory is that it came from a natural spring finding a new course, another that the surrounding ground had become saturated due to the recent heavy rain.

New donations will be kept upstairs until the cellar is made watertight.

Stella Olivier, chairman of the charity’s trustees, said: “What is rather sad is that
the volunteers and the staff have worked so hard, especially Peter Malcolm who sent out all of the letters and sees all of the donations come in.

“Staff and volunteers, including myself, went out to talk to the children so that they understood that there are some people out there who don’t have the simple things like a nice warm bed.

“They don’t even have a toothbrush or toothpaste, they don’t have a home and often they don’t have anything to eat, or even to make themselves a cup of tea or coffee.

“People are very generous and to have all that stock in there and to have a flood is just terrible.

“We have to condemn everything that is in the cellar because it’s possible that the water was contaminated.

“There are young people out there who are going to be going into accommodation with nothing and our philosophy has always been that they should have the basic essentials of life.

“Christmas is coming up and often the accommodation we provide is unfurnished and most of them will have nothing because they’ve been abandoned.

“Our staff feel so cut up about this because when you’re working with these young people you can’t help but get involved.

“They’re feeling very upset because they can’t do their jobs and it’s not their fault.

“We can still provide young people with showers and the facilities to wash and dry their clothes but they need the essentials of life.”