The owners of a cafe in Leigh are on track to raise £20,000 to help homeless people.

Staff at The Grove, in Belton Way East, have been raising money for Southend homeless charity Harp for 12 years and are hoping to bring their fundraising total to £20,000 this winter with the support of their kind-hearted diners.

When Louise and Delvin Pitt first opened The Grove in 2005, they were keen to give something back to their community.

During their very next winter, they introduced StreetSmart – an initiative that offers restaurants the opportunity to raise money to help local homeless people simply by adding a voluntary donation to their diner’s bills. So far, they have raised a whopping £18,195.

Mrs Pitt said: “We think it’s a great thing for our customers to be involved in.

“If customers don’t want to donate it’s not a problem at all, but there are considerably more people that want to donate more than there are those that decline.

“The beauty of this simple yet effective initiative is that it’s local people helping local people.

“Because StreetSmart is sponsored by the Deutsch Bank, every penny we raise goes straight to Harp.”

To fundraise for Harp, call 01702 615000.