Black Santa returns to NI to raise disaster funds

Churchmen in Belfast resumed their famous Black Santa Christmas charity sit-out today to raise funds for the victims of the Asian earthquake.

For more than 20 years, the Dean of St Anne’s Cathedral and colleagues spent the week before Christmas standing with a barrel on the steps of the cathedral collecting money for local charities and Christian Aid.

Clad in hooded black cape – as the Black Santa – the Dean raised over £200,000 (€281,000) this year.

Dean Houston McKelvey said he was restarting the annual appeal to help the victims of the quake.

It is the first time the appeal has run beyond Christmas Eve and the Dean said it would provide a well-known and accessible way for people to identify practically with the suffering and loss in Asia.

“The capacity of the Northern Ireland community to respond to people in need never ceases to amaze me.

“I think all of us have been shocked by what we have seen. At the cathedral we simply felt that we had a facility people knew about to channel funds to a cause like this,” he said.

He said that due to the generosity of people during the annual sit-out, the cathedral had secured what it needed to share with more than 100 local charities.

But he added: “The scale and devastation in Asia is going to stretch the capabilities of aid agencies, and indeed governments.”

All the money he raises will be forwarded through Christian Aid, which has already provided £250,000 (€352,000) to India and Sri Lanka, he said.