A SHELTER for the homeless has opened its doors to a welcome start to the New Year. Recruitment specialist Brook Street has raised more than £2,000 for Open Door, the shelter in St Albans city centre, as a result of their suppliers donating raffle prizes

A SHELTER for the homeless has opened its doors to a welcome start to the New Year.

Recruitment specialist Brook Street has raised more than £2,000 for Open Door, the shelter in St Albans city centre, as a result of their suppliers donating raffle prizes for the staff Christmas party, making weekly "jeans day" contributions and relinquishing Christmas cards to clients in favour of giving more money to the charity.

Open Door provides an emergency night shelter and daytime drop-in centre and every night of the year it provides homeless adults with a safe, warm bed, a hot meal, bathing and laundry facilities and a range of other services.

It relies heavily on donations and volunteers and several members of staff at Brook Street also volunteered to help at the centre

Margaret Lewis, chair of the Open Door Trust, said: "This donation is a wonderful start to the New Year and I would like to thank all the staff at Brook Street for their superb fundraising efforts.

For the night shelter and drop-in day service to operate we need to raise £75,000 a year. This donation has given us a great start.