Forget-Me-Notts is expanding

What a week!? The Forget-Me-Notts Team purchased, wrapped and delivered a total of 1,479 gifts ready to be distributed to children across the Midlands in time for Christmas.

We delivered the gifts to Nottingham City, Nottingham County and Derbyshire Social Services, as well as other care homes and women’s refuges.

This year our selection boxes went as far as Sheffield and Birmingham!   I was thrilled to be providing for some new organisations as well as all the exiting connections.  All these organisations come into contact with some incredibly needy children, and these are the children we are trying to reach.  If you are reading this and you know of an organisation who works with children who get nothing at Christmas, please get in touch – forget-me-notts@operation-orphan.org.

If you were in Home Bargains trying to buy Cadburys Selection Boxes in Nottinghamshire last week, you’ll know that we cleared them out!  Each of the local stores were incredibly helpful and helped us to hit our target.  With more boxes than ever before Wednesday looked daunting, however, we still managed to complete the wrapping in record time.  The Nottingham Knights Cheerleaders were faithful as always and provided the bulk of the support to wrap the boxes.  This team was strengthened by volunteers from Rothera Dowson, Jo and Claire, who bought with them around 60 selection boxes donated by people from the Nottingham based solicitor’s firm.  Finally there was a core of dedicated volunteers who had been negotiating prices for the boxes, cutting paper, liaising with the university and providing support.  Thank you to Valerie, Lynne, Heather, Dawn, Dorothy, Brad and Kelly.  I also want to say a special thank you to the university who were really gracious in accommodating us and to Kelly and Esme from the Nottingham Knights who were absolutely worth their weight in gold…and chocolate!  You guys have impacted 1,479 lives this Christmas, just the fact that they have been given a gift will show them they have not been forgotten.

Even though the boxes have been distributed you can still chose to support this project by donating £2 towards the cost of a gift.  We are hugely grateful to KeepMoat who are holding a Christmas collection to raise money for the project, why not join them and do your bit for the vulnerable children right here in the UK.

Jess