Buy from your
local vendor this Christmas
If you can’t reach them, buy a Vendor Support Kit
BUY A KITBig Issue at Christmas
This Christmas, 3.8 million people across the UK face extreme poverty, struggling to eat, clothe and keep themselves warm. Thousands turn to selling the Big Issue as a lifeline, providing a vital source of income for themselves and their families. But they can’t do this without your support.
This Christmas, you can support Big Issue vendors in three impactful ways, to earn and lift themselves out of poverty for good:
1. Buy a magazine from your local vendor in the street every week – every sale helps them earn. Vendors buy each copy for half the price and keep the profit on each sale.
2. Buy a Vendor Support Kit for £35, which will provide the tools they need to work through the winter and the training they need to improve their lives.
3. Subscribe online to the Big Issue via a vendor – for every annual subscription, vendors earn £50, helping them work towards a brighter future.
Change a Big Issue vendor’s life this Christmas and beyond.
Your Vendor Support Kit purchase will provide a…
Will’s Story
My name is Will, I’m 64, and I sell the Big Issue in Islington in London.
I live in Islington now in temporary accommodation, which I have been in for the last 10 years. I’m trying to learn to play a little bit of guitar at the moment, but I’m not very good at it. I’ve been going to the gym quite a bit lately as well, trying to get a bit healthier.
I was a painter and decorator before I started the Big Issue, but then I started drinking and lost that job. After that, I sent off thousands and thousands of letters looking for a bit of work and I wasn’t getting no replies, nothing. They wanted younger people for jobs, people who haven’t got a record, and I got all of them so I was just really left to one side.
When I started the Big Issue, that was a turning point in my life, it’s helped me big time. The Big Issue works. It helps to save a little bit of change, which I never could do before. The money helps towards my bills and shopping and getting my flat together. And when I’m selling the papers, I enjoy meeting different people. Otherwise I wouldn’t speak to half the people I do now and I enjoy talking with them.
Selling in winter is not too good though. A few of my customers go and get me coffee, but no one really likes the winter unless you’re wrapped up for it. But still, I get on with it. I can deal with the cold, it’s only the rain I don’t like.
I’ve got lovely customers, they’re good to me. I really, really want to thank them from my heart, for all the good what they’ve helped me go through over the years.
How the Big Issue Support Team helps at Christmas
We’re on the streets every day, providing vendors with the support and encouragement they need to improve their life.
We enabe vendors to go cashless to make it easier for people to buy the magazine and increase vendor earnings.
We give vendors access to critical services like housing advice, health & wellbeing support, access to ID and bank accounts, providing access to fuel and food vouchers.
Alongside Big Issue Recruit we provide support and training to move vendors into sustainable and long-term employment.
Our Vendors
Bradley Duggan, Shell Garage, Eastville Park, Easton, Bristol
Will Herbert, Budgens, Upper Street, Islington, London
Stuart Drucker, Roath Market (Saturdays) and Riverside Market (Sundays), Cardiff
Claude Williams, Sainsbury’s, Harbourside, Bristol
Big Issue Promise
Your purchase of the Big Issue Winter Support Kit helps to cover the cost of the items in the kit and supports the vital efforts of the Big Issue Support Service (Big Issue Changing Lives CIC).
Our Support Team will distribute the items in the Big Issue Vendor Support kit to vendors as they visit local offices to purchase their magazines. Distribution of items will be based on the level of support from the public for the Winter Support kits and the individual vendor need for each of the items in the kit.
Our Support Team has enabled over 108,000 vendors to sell 229 million copies of the Big Issue magazine and earn more than £154 million in income, since 1991.
Our team helps set people up as vendors so they can sell the magazine and start earning an income from day one. The team also supports vendors to access essential services, across our five key impact pillars, to help people get back on their feet and work towards a better future for themselves.
See here for more information on how we manage your financial contribution to the Big Issue Changing Lives CIC.
Campaign photography credit: Exposure Photo Agency, Frankie Stone and Louise Haywood-Schiefer