The John Jacques: Wetherspoons The Game's Portsmouth charity food drive helps feed the cities homeless

Chris Illman used his Wetherspoons The Game Facebook Group to encourage strangers to purchase food at The John Jacques pub in Fratton via the Wetherspoons app on Thursday, December 21. The food was then collected and distributed to the homeless by the charity HUSH (Help Us Support the Homeless).

The game utilises a quirk in the Wetherspoons app that means you can order to any pub in the country no matter where you are, and it gained national attention recently when its members sky rocketed to over 400,000. Players will post on the group which Wetherspoons they are in and the table number they are sitting at. Other members will then donate drinks and food and it has created a community of pub goers who will buy each other rounds.

Chris started a breakfast and lunch time game and he was delighted with the response. He said: “Its been unbelievable. We sold a 120 breakfast wraps at 9.30 this morning and the post was only live for eight minutes and forty-five seconds so that was quite a response. The manager bet me that we couldn’t sell them out of snacks so I posted about it and we sold the whole pub out of snacks in under twelve minutes.”

The lunch time game proved just as fruitful with 130 burgers and chips sold within eight minutes and four seconds. This is not the first time that Chris has played the game for charity, he hosts regular charity games across the country to help feed homeless and vulnerable people. It is also a cause close to his heart having started the group at a time when he was diagnosed with cancer, going through a separation, and made temporarily homeless.

Chris added: “We got help today from HUSH which is a local voluntary organisation. They get food donations and they give them to the homeless and give it out at hostels which is an amazing cause. They are absolutely fantastic and are dishing it all out for us.”