“Running to show the humanity behind every rough sleepers’ blanket”
Stan Robertson started homelessness charity, Project 16:15, during the infamous Beast from the East cold snap
Stan Robertson doesn’t do running.
The founder of rough sleeper charity Project 16:15 winces at the idea of pounding the pavements simply to end up back where he started.
And Stan has spent plenty of time in recent years leveraging his show leather in a far greater cause.
He first started delivering food and hot drinks to rough sleepers in Northampton (England) back in 2017 and his charity has grown to become the town’s only dedicated rough sleeper service provider.
But despite his personal feelings about running, Stan is pleased to see the return of the 16:15 Charity Run on Saturday, April 12.
The Northampton Racecourse-based event will raise money and awareness for Project 16:15 and of the plight of rough sleepers.
A version of this article was first published on this Substack in 2023. This piece has been updated to promote the 2025 16:15 Charity Run.
Audiences change, and dare I say grow, over the years so I hope you don’t mind us re-hashing this story to help raise awareness of the charity and the event.
Stan will be manning an aid table providing food and drinks to runners on the day as they take on what this year will be a 10k run.
The event, which first took place in 2023, has previously been held as a six hour run, taking in loops of the first 1.6 mile lap of the Racecourse’s parkrun route.
Although participants were encouraged to run no further or longer than they wanted within that timeframe, there was a feeling the long nature of the event was putting some people off.
Hence, the decision to hold a 10km run, starting at 10am after parkrun and allowing all participants to finish at around the same time.
A medal ceremony will then be held, with Northampton’s Mayor Paul Joyce in attendance.
The free event is open to all, with the hope being runners will fundraise for Project 16:15 or provide a donation on the day.
A baptism of ice
Project 16:15 was formed in late 2017 and had a baptism of ice when the Beast from the East cold snap hit just months later.
One of the people who stayed out in freezing conditions was George Murray. He refused all offers of help and remained on Northampton’s streets in the freezing conditions.
George would eventually be found his own flat due to the hard work of West Northamptonshire Council’s Outreach team, but sadly he died in September 2022.
Our own Michelle Lewis, whose Step Forward With Lewis business came up with the original idea of the run, told Running Tales: “George was a hugely well-known and popular figure on Northampton's streets.
“But all too often rough sleepers like George only get the help and recognition they deserve when it is too late.
"With a bit of luck, we can help the next George in some small way."
From a rucksack to an all-round welfare service
Talking about the formation of Project 16:15, Stan said: “It was started to deliver to people what I felt was missing on the streets: dignity, self-respect, value and worth.
“People living on the streets didn’t understand they were worth anything in life, and their lives were focused daily on their situation and their circumstance.
“I wanted to give them a reason to wake up in the morning, and to think they could do more and be more than where they were at.”
At first, Stan just walked up and down Northampton’s Abington Street carrying a rucksack full of bacon rolls and an urn of coffee.
It was a month before he graduated to a basic trolley: “The first one was one of those little black trolleys that solicitors wheel about with files in.
“The bottom kept falling out.”
Eventually, Stan upgraded to a more sturdy trolley and these days the charity even has a food van.
The advance in equipment is mirrored by similar developments in the scope of Project 16:15.
“It started as breakfast in bed,” Stan said.
“It’s the most important time of the day, people are waking up, there is nothing available to them until later in the day so it is just a really, really dark time.
“As that progressed, we came across greater need and realised people required more than just a hot meal in the morning.
“They needed company and conversation, so we started spending more time speaking to people and listening to their stories and letting them be heard.
“That moved on to sleeping bags, clothing and tents, and general welfare. It became an all-round welfare service, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year.”
“The money raised through this event will support everybody who has been on our streets, past and present,” Stan added.
“We still support people who have been on our streets. who are going through the cycle of accommodation and maybe prison and back to the streets, or even those in hospital.
“It will go not just towards food - as we are well blessed with food donations - but towards the welfare work we do and to the provision of safety equipment - things like hand-held alarms or torches - or luxuries like wind-up radios.
“One of our favourite things is the sleep pods we provide. As the winter looks like it is about to get colder again, we will have to invest in more of those.”
Death, sex and assaults on our streets
The 16:15 Charity Run also aims to raise awareness of the plight of those who sleep on our streets.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the average age of death for homeless men in the UK is 45.9 years old. For women, that number falls to 41.6.
Stan told Running Tales that every single rough sleeper he was serving breakfast to back in 2017 is now, happily, in accommodation or, tragically, has died.
“There isn’t anyone left out there now who was out there when I started.
“What happens is people give up. They don’t see a way out of where the are, out of the addiction or the drink, or the poverty circle they are in.”
As well as the spectre of death and the obvious discomfort of sometimes extreme weather and poor sleeping conditions, rough sleepers also face assault and sexual assault on an all too regular basis.
Stan said the majority of incidents are carried out by drunk men, who”come out of pubs, see a young girl on the streets and think it is ok to take what they want.
“We’ve also had a long running issue of equipment being used as currency on our streets for sexual assaults and sexual trafficking. Tents or even a blanket, if given to the wrong people, are used to bargain for sexual favours.”
There have been regular incidences in Northampton of homeless people or their tents being used as toilets, or set on fire.
Stan told Running Tales: “To me awareness is more important than money.
“We want to educate people, make them aware of the humanity of homelessness. I’ve said many times that there is humanity behind every blanket.”
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