THE ISLAND'S community spirit has shone through once again as a simple plea for towels for the homeless received an overwhelming response.

At a meeting with Outreach, Trevor Blaney, from the Pop-Up Soup Kitchen and Waste Not Want Not, was told an unexpected amount of homeless people were using the night shelter and there was a shortage of towels.

He decided to use his social media base and created a post that asked the public to drop off towels to the base at 67a Newport High Street.

Trevor said: "Within hours, our loyal follows started to bring in towels. A quick glance at the Facebook page revealed more than 200 shares and 10,000 views, which later rose above 17,000."

As soon as the soup kitchen opened the doors, Islanders started bringing in bags of towels. One woman even purchased ten from Argos and sent Trevor the purchase codes.

He said: "By mid-afternoon Tuesday, I had to create a post that called off the request as the pile of donated towels grew along and then up our back wall."

Trevor said he would like to thank everyone who donated and that the volume and speed of the response was truly amazing.