XMAS HAMPERS

Christmas cheer arrived on the doorstep of over 1000 families in our area this Christmas, with the successful completion of the Wakefield Express sponsored  Xmas Hamper Appeal run for us by the Community Awareness Programme (CAP) and the Rotary Club of Wakefield Chantry. This is the 4^th year that the appeal, in its current format, has been run and in that time it has grown to the size it is now, of delivering over 1000 hampers to families that need help to ensure that Christmas is a time of joy and not despair.

With the help of our readers, both individual and corporate, who have donated over 200 finished hampers, we have also been able to collect and finance the amount of food necessary to allow the volunteers to pack over 800 to give us the magic total of over 1000 finished hampers.

The Children First Hubs, run by Children and Young People Services, made sure that all of the hampers went to those families who actually needed and deserved the help that these provided. When we handed over the very last hamper to be distributed, at the Cedars Children Centre in Hemsworth to Julie Westbroom, she said, “This project by the Rotary Club volunteers and CAP is amazing. The logistics in putting this together is enormous and we are so grateful for the efforts all of those involved put in, to help make Christmas special for families in need!”.

The family nominated for the final hamper,  was a single mum with 6 children.  After the hamper had been given to them, Mum said “This is a real surprise and a real help, for myself and families like mine, to ensure that the children have a great Christmas with just some of the little extra’s that, for many, are taken for granted. But for us these extras would be out of reach without this help. I want to say a very big thank you to everyone who has helped in making this project so successful”