A CITY charity is celebrating after raising more than £100,000 to buy a house to help vulnerable people off the streets.

Businessman Adam Dandy co-founded SHARE in 2015 to help refugees fleeing war-torn countries and opened the Share Shop, which supports the homeless, in January of the following year.

Alongside the charity’s dedicated volunteers, he then launched the Buy-a-Brick campaign that sees people pay £1 for a symbolic brick towards the purchase of a property in the city.

The aim was to provide a “stepping stone” to get people off the streets, allow them to tackle issues and addictions and ultimately help them find work and permanent accommodation.

It has been supported by hundreds of people, from youngsters donating their pocket money to celebrities such as ITV newsreader Lucy Meacock and Corrie’s Brooke Vincent.

And yesterday Adam revealed that the charity had finally enough to buy a house, aided hugely by a one-off donation of £40,000 last October.

He wrote on the charity’s Facebook page: “We are delighted to announce that tomorrow we are signing the legal paperwork to begin the process of exchanging and completing on the new #ShareHouse in the next couple of weeks!

“We cannot thank you enough for all of your support and hard work in getting us to this stage. All of your signed bricks on the wallpaper will be used to help decorate and remind everyone who uses the house of all the love and support that is out there in this city to help end their suffering on the streets.”

Adam said he and the team had been “overwhelmed, by the love, support and kindness of the people of Chester, North Wales and thousands of tourists from around the world”.

He added: “People from all walks of life have done everything from bathing in baked beans, jumping out of perfectly good planes, running marathons, organising non uniform days, selling red Lego bricks in their schools and offices, to just this weekend climbing the three peaks in under 24hrs!”

Last October artist Mark Funge came up with the idea of painting Angel Wings in the window of the Share Shop on Northgate Street which sparked support from celebrities, the most recent being I’m a Celebrity 2017 winner Georgia Toffolo.

“And who can forget the amazing phone call we received from one extremely generous lady by the name of Wendy Chilton who donated a huge sum towards the appeal which put us a year or two forward, for which we will be forever grateful!” added Adam.

“One thing that also stands out is all of those children who came in every Saturday to donate their hard-earned pocket money to buy bricks.

“Thanks also to all our amazing volunteers at SHARE in Mold and Chester for giving up so much of your time you all should be really, really proud of yourselves.”

Adam said the hard work would now continue supporting vulnerable people in the community. It is expected that the new house will allow three rough sleepers to be helped at any one time.

To carry on helping SHARE, visit

www.ShareAid.co.uk