A charity which helps the homeless is teaming up with Rotarians to launch a new campaign to help keep vulnerable people warm this winter.

The Purfleet Trust in Lynn and the town’s Trinity Rotary Club are spearheading a Wrap Up West Norfolk winter coat appeal – hoping the community will show its support.

The campaign is being launched with the help of Wrap Up UK, a programme which support various winter coat campaigners around the country with the help of Hands On London.

Businesses have come forward as collection points for donated items and the Your Local Paper/Lynn News office at 17 Tuesday Market Place in Lynn is one of the collection points.

You can drop-off any good condition warm coat you no longer need – for men, women and children – knowing they will go towards keeping vulnerable members of our community warm as the colder weather sets in.

The appeal is running for just one week (from Sunday October 12 to 19) and coats can be dropped off at our YLP office during opening hours on weekdays next week from 8.30am to 4.30pm from Monday, October 13 to Friday, October 17.

If you can’t get to our office, you can take donated items during the promotion dates to these other places in Lynn: Majestic Cinema, Sainsbury’s both in the Vancouver Quarter and Hardwick Industrial Estate, the Duke’s Head Hotel, Specsavers at the Hardwick, and Morrisons in Lynn.

Coats can also be dropped off at Purfleet’s Pathways Warehouse, 56/57 Bergen Way, on the North Lynn Industrial Estate and the Discover Centre, Columbia Way, North Lynn.

Other supporting businesses – East Coast Signs, Adrian Flux Insurance Services, Greenyard and Freebridge – will be holding their own staff coat collections.

The charity, based at Austin Fields, said: “As the colder weather approaches, vulnerable people across King’s Lynn and West Norfolk are bracing for challenges of staying warm, feeding their families and finding a safe place to call home.

“We need your support to make a real difference. Can you donate to our Wrap Up campaign this winter?”

Kieran Gamble from The Purfleet Trust said: “Winter coats shouldn’t be a luxury, but sadly they often are. We want to make sure that no one goes cold this winter in West Norfolk.

“If you have a winter coat that doesn’t make it out of your wardrobe often, or are looking at buying a new one this season, please consider donating to the Wrap Up West Norfolk campaign as it will make a huge difference to someone’s quality of life.”

Joy Wylie, Purfleet’s fundraising and communications manager, added: “It’s a simple way to gather warm coats for people experiencing homelessness and families in food poverty who use our social supermarket.”

The coats will be collected on Monday, October 20, then sorted and distributed.

Ms Wylie added: “This is the first year running the campaign locally, and with your help we can make it a success.”

The trust has seen the benefit of this campaign in the past with the help of Rotarians from Norwich.

It was lucky enough to get some coats from Norwich district club collections which went were in turn donated to the Purfleet Pantry based near Lynn’s South Gate with the help of Trinity Rotary.

The coats were distributed free to families and children.