A GROUP of young people spread some Christmas cheer amongst the local homeless community as they treated them to a slap-up lunch.

Students taking part in the National Citizens Service scheme raised £500 to host a Christmas lunch for around 30 homeless people at Weymouth College.

The group arrived at around 10am and spent the day prepping and cooking up the festive feast before it was served at 3pm.

The generosity did not stop there as each guest was treated to a Christmas gift bag.

The event was organised through local homeless support organisation Soul Food.

Student support assistant at Weymouth College Lauren Robertson said her NCS group had decided to support the homeless community for the volunteering element of their course, which requires them to do 30 hours of community work.

She said: "They get to pick whatever they want for it and a couple of them have worked with Soul Food before so they were quite keen to do it again.

"It's all about giving something back to the comminity and they quite passionate about helping."

Before the Christmas dinner the young people had to go about fundraising for the event, which they did in a number of ways including a ten-mile sponsored walk and cake sales.

The group involved students from Weymouth College and Budmouth College and Budmouth donated £200 towards the event.

There was further good news as Lloyds bank said it would match fund their efforts and donate whatever they manage to raise to Soul Foods.

The guests were invited to the event through Soul Food and were all treated to hot drinks before enjoying the Christmas dinner.

After they had finished they each got to go away with one of the gift bags the young people had created for them.

NCS courses run outside of term time and are aimed at giving young people aged between 15 and 17 develop new skills and help the transition between school and further education.

The courses have four phases – adventure, future, making a difference and graduation.

For more information visit ncsyes.co.uk