Train travellers across the UK could generate a staggering £30,000 a day to help young runaways and street children simply by booking their train travel online.

Railway Children, a charity for the welfare of young runaways, is calling for commuters to change the lives of British street children by donating loyalty points which they can earn by booking their train tickets on redspottedhanky.com.

Each day, 3 million people in the UK travel by train. If each of these passengers donated one loyalty point, earned by booking on redspottedhanky.com, an extra £30,000 a day could be spent on improving the lives of vulnerable runaway and street children in the UK

“Budgets are tight for everyone, but this is a simple way for us to help protect children from violence, drugs, sexual exploitation and sleeping rough on the streets. It won’t add to the cost of your ticket and you are making an unimaginable difference to the lives of vulnerable children,” says Terina Keene, Chief Executive of Railway Children.

“We understand that many travellers are tightening their purse strings, but donating through loyalty points offers us the chance to help those in need without breaking the family budget,” says Ursula Morgenstern from redspottedhanky.com.

“An amount as small as £10 can feed, clothe, wash and house a street child for the night. £50 could do something much more significant, and reunite a runaway child with their family” Morgenstern says.

Train travellers can log on to redspottedhanky.com to find the best rail fare for their journey, then simply choose the amount of points they want to donate.

“Our aim is to help get to these street kids before the streets get to them. Donating your redspottedhanky.com loyalty points will help us do this,” said Terina Keene.

The hard facts: runaways and homeless children in the UK

·      100,000 children under the age of sixteen run away from home or care every year in the UK.*
·      1 in 12 young runaways are hurt or harmed while they are away.*
·      1 in 6 young runaways sleep rough.*
·      Railway Children provide all 5 safe refuge beds for runaway children which currently exist in the UK.
·      £5 will feed a child 3 times a day in one of their shelters in India for a week.
·      £10 provides food, overnight clothing and toiletries for a child at a shelter in the UK.
·      £50 will pay for up to 10 counselling sessions with a child within a shelter, who may never have had the opportunity to talk through the reasons they ran away from home.
·      £50 can pay for a child to be reunited with their family.
·      Over half a million train journeys are made in London alone. The points from these journeys could reunite £500 children with their families.