Christmas gifts for children in care

Charity starts at home.  We hear it so much!  So, we are helping children right here in Nottingham as well as overseas. 

Forget-Me-Notts has been running for 10 years and has grown from a few hundred children to 1,950 children reached this Christmas.  We wrap Cadbury’s chocolate selection boxes with a card and distribute them across Nottingham and the Midlands.  With such a small core staff how do we achieve this?  ANSWER:  With a little help from our friends.

The Nottingham University Cheerleaders, the Nottingham Knights, helped us out as always.  The charity secretary for the club this year is Cameron.  He did an incredible job preparing the room, and supporting us with the wrap.  He also completed the Robin Hood Half Marathon in September to raise funds for the project.  Thanks Cameron you’ve been amazing!  We’ve also had volunteers pop in to cut paper and help deliver the boxes.

An addition this year has been from The Sun on Sunday.  Through their #knitablanket campaign we’ve been swamped with more knitted blankets than ever before.  We wanted to pack some of them up with the selection boxes that were going to Social Services in Nottingham City.  This was no small task, and yet again some friends stepped in.  Dave and the Estates Team from Boots carefully sorted through the blankets, sized them and packaged them up with a selection box.  It only took them a morning to pack just over 500 gifts.  Well done guys, and THANK YOU.  Some of these gifts will also be heading down to Portsmouth and some up to Preston to bring a bit of warmth and joy to children at Christmas.

Finally this week we collected 200 wrapped selection boxes from National C of E Academy in Hucknall.  These guys have done an amazing job.  They held a non-school uniform day and also donated in their form groups to raise money for the project.  All last week the children at National Academy have been busy wrapping selection boxes.  We were excited to go in today to collect them and also a cheque for £1937.22. 

We are so grateful to everyone who has helped out this year; from Home Bargains who ordered in and helped load the boxes all the way to the care providers who distribute them.  If you would like to join the family and donate to this great project follow the link below.  Just £2 helps us to buy, wrap and deliver to a child who would otherwise get nothing.

Jess