HOMELESS people enjoyed a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings at the RASCAL Hope Centre in Somerton.

The idea for last week’s event was the brain child of Debbie Clark, who has been involved with the centre since it was established in 2008. Other volunteers helped on the day to prepare the meal and put up decorations around the centre on Poplar Road.

She said: “It’s the first time we’ve done it. Usually we do it for the OAPs instead. We have wanted to do it for a few years. It was absolutely wonderful.”

Tesco Extra in Spytty donated food worth £134 for the dinner and visitors could play pool, table tennis or darts after they had finished eating.

All 30 of the guests were given a small present each. All of the gifts had been donated to the centre by the Newport community and anything left over will be donated to night shelters across the city.

For the dinner, volunteers cooked two extra extra large turkeys, a whole sack of potatoes, sprouts, carrots, peas, stuffing and gravy. Soup and a bread roll were served for the starter and there was a choice of desserts. People could have Christmas pudding with brandy sauce or a slice of strawberry or chocolate gateau. Then they had the choice of mince pies with coffee.