Carl used to own pubs – several of them – and a string of hotels. Then two years ago, rising costs forced him into bankruptcy. Now he sleeps on the beach in summer, and in winter sits in an all-night McDonald’s nursing a single cup of coffee.

Carl’s daughters are in a different part of the country with his ex-wife. To maintain the illusion that he lives a normal life, Carl is careful only to video-call them from the local Wetherspoon’s with a meal and a drink carefully positioned in shot. That way, he reasons, he looks like a man with somewhere to be.

But something his daughters do not know is that Carl can only get the meal thanks to a WhatsApp group quietly buying food and drink for homeless and vulnerable people across in the UK.

“This group has literally been a lifesaver,” he says, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry to cry but the group doesn’t only mean I can talk to my daughters – it means I can feel normal, like I’m a part of society again, without people snarling at me or giving me bad looks.”

At least 382,000 people in England are now homeless, while about 14 million people across the UK – about one in six households – struggle to afford food.

The group Carl is describing has no offices, no charity registration, no paid staff. It does not even have a proper name. It is an offshoot of Wetherspoons: the Game!, a Facebook community of more than 800,000 people who buy drinks for one another using the chain’s app.

The original game was built around a simple premise: strangers buy one another drinks in Wetherspoon’s pubs – taking advantage of the fact that, unlike other pub apps, you do not have to be on Wetherspoon’s premises to make an order.

People simply post a photo of themselves on the Facebook page, along with their pub location and table number. Then they wait to see what someone, somewhere else in the UK, buys them. Those who receive are expected to return the favour for someone else later, creating a loose network of strangers buying rounds for one another.

The founder, Chris Illman, started the WhatsApp group to support vulnerable people after experiencing homelessness himself. He asked members of his Facebook group if instead of buying drinks for one another they would buy food and non-alcoholic drinks for those who could not afford it themselves. Nearly 700 people joined the dedicated WhatsApp group and now respond in real time to requests from hungry people sitting hopefully in Wetherspoon’s across the country.

To request a meal, a homeless or vulnerable person – or a family – can contact admins on the Wetherspoon’s: The Game! Facebook page with their location and meal request, accompanied by a photo to prove they are real and really in the pub. An admin – one of 10 – will then send the anonymised request to the WhatsApp group of potential donors.

A donor claims the request by replying with what they are prepared to order – a meal, for example, a bag of crisps or one simple word: anything. There are no “thank yous”. No happy photos. No chatter.

Illman has never advertised the initiative but word has spread that if you find yourself inside a Wetherspoon’s with no money, there are people who will help. “It’s never failed yet. Not once,” said Illman. “In fact, people are so quick that you have to move fast if you want to donate.”

The group handles a couple of requests on most days but during school holidays, 20 to 30 families can need help. Illman recently asked the community if there should be a limit on how many meals people can request. “The result of the vote was unanimous,” he said. “If someone needs help every day, the group is there for them.”

For Carl, the donation of a single hot drink means he can sit in the pub for hours, using the wifi to call his daughters and applying for jobs.

“You see the very worst of people when you’re homeless,” he said. “But in this group, you see the very best: strangers happy to buy me a meal without judgment.”

Since 2018, the group has bought tens of thousands of meals and hundreds of thousands of snacks for vulnerable people across the UK. In June, in Scotland, it will hold its 60th mass meal drop – events where members buy meals in bulk through the Wetherspoon’s app, which are then collected from the pub by volunteer drivers and taken to local charities.

The event is expected to be the group’s largest yet: at a Liverpool event in 2024, 300 burgers and cans were donated by the group and handed out in 20 minutes. The event brought together seven charities which are still working together today.

Maria gives what she can through the app at the end of each week. A foster carer and mother to two children with special needs who has been homeless herself, she said the app helps her feel “there’s more kindness in the world than it might seem”. She added: “It really makes a difference to me to feel I’m part of a community that wants to do this for complete strangers.”