Volunteers collect warm clothes at their counter opposite Ram Mandir on Janpath. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 17: A group of 20 people, many of who came to know each other through social networking site Facebook, have joined hands to warm up the winter for the homeless.

Coming from different backgrounds, these people have started a campaign called “Donate a blanket” to collect old blankets and winter garments for people in need.

The initiative was launched a week ago with the group so far collecting more than 100 blankets and 100 winter garments.

“We are friends from different backgrounds like engineering and management students, professionals, businessmen and people from social service organisations. We keep in touch on Facebook.

“Yesterday, we opened a counter in front of Ram Mandir on Janpath to motivate people for donation. We collected nearly 20 blankets there,’’ said Snehashish Senapati, an engineering student.

Businessman Soumyaranjan Mohanty said: “The winter clothes that we collected were distributed among the destitutes near Ram Mandir and railway station last night. More locations will be identified so that more garments can be distributed. We are also going to collect blankets from a number of residential colonies.”

Artist Harishankar Panigrahi, also a member of the the group, said: “The campaign will also try to educate and sensitise the people on the plight of those without warm clothes in the winter.’’

Bhubaneswar has been experiencing cold weather over the last three or four days owing to cold waves of wind from the northeastern direction, said the local Met department.

“Social sites are known to build links among friends, but we have utilised the opportunity to help people,” said Durga Charan Samal, another member of the group.