Help the homeless this Christmas with the Billy Chip
Photos from the Billy Chip Faceboook Page
If you are looking help the homeless over Christmas? There's a new way to do it, thanks to a young charity in Bristol. Billy Chip allows the public to buy special tokens, which if you give to a homeless person, they can then exchange for a hot drink or food at selected cafes. The charity was set up in 2018 in memory of Billy Abernethy-Hope by his family; he died in Thailand in 2018 aged just 20. Three years later and having had the pandemic to deal with, more than 30 venues have signed up to the scheme across Bristol and Bath outlets that have signed up to date include Better Food at Whapping Wharf, Sevier Street and on Whiteladies Road, Biblos in Stokes Croft and Cascara on Upper Borough Walls in Bath Megan Abernethy-Hope, Billy’s sister, is one of the co-founders.
“The Billy Chip is a £2 token. It’s sort of the size and shape of a poker chip...it’s got Billy Chip written on it and on the other side it’s got a QR code on it, that you can scan and that will show you where our nearest outlets are.” The charity Billy, who provided the inspiration for the idea, was killed in a freak motorbike accident three years ago. Alongside Megan, his dad Jon Hope set up the charity in his memory. He come up with this idea when talking to my dad and saying to him, ‘you come home and you just chuck your change from your back pocket into a pot, yet you still step over somebody in the street who could really do with that.
Jon responded saying he was worried about giving homeless people cash in case it was used to fund an addiction. Hence, after Billy’s “The concept of the Billy Chip is a token death the charity was born to eradicate that scheme that enables the homeless to be able fear among people who otherwise, would to go into coffee shops and order their own want to help. drinks, so tea, coffee, bottles of water and in some of our outlets even food,” she said. 4
