It sucks when festival punters are so thoughtless they don’t bother to pack up their tents and just leave them behind at the campsite, but Splendour In The Grass have turned it into a positive by donating the abandoned tents to the homeless.

According to Echo Daily, “two ute loads” worth of tents were collected by On Track Community Programs (OTCP) and Connecting Home, cleaned, repacked, and given to homeless people who attended Homelessness Connect Day in Lismore last week.

“While the challenge of tackling homelessness obviously goes well beyond tent accommodation, this is a small positive step to help some local people have rudimentary shelter and not have to sleep rough,” OTCP chief executive Elaine De Vos told Echo.

According to the Northern Star, some punters left their entire camp behind, including tents, chairs, tables, Eskies, and inflatable beds. Volunteers managed to salvage some 60 tents from the festival camp site.

“We managed to grab a couple of 12-man tents which were basically new,” OTCP’s Sarah Walker told the Northern Star. “People fly into the festival, pool their money and a buy a tent. The problem is they can’t take the tent back with them on the plane.”

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