History behind our Christmas gifts!
In celebration of this years Christmas success:
A brief insight to the history of Forget-Me-Notts starts with a lady named Anthea Wainwright in September 2006. The aim was to give chocolates at Easter and Christmas to young individuals in the care system.
One child who received a chocolate gift gave back to the charity in later years by volunteering and fundraising for Operation Orphan and Forget-Me-Notts. This demonstrates the power this appeal has on many people. The aim is to ensure that no one feels forgotten about during a potentially lonely time of year such as Christmas. (Attached is a photo from a 2011 Newspaper article celebrating the charities chocolate operation!)
Due to ill health, Andrea could not carry on with the charity and approached Brad and Cyrilyn at Operation Orphan to aid the project… 18 years after the first appeal, we continue to receive requests submitted by local care providers.
Our request for 2024 sadly rose from previous years with a target of 4823 selection boxes. However, the community really fulfilled the charities aims of making the vulnerable not feel forgotten due to the combined efforts to meet this target. As well as many individual volunteers and donors, we now have lots of companies, groups and schools supporting this strand of Forget-Me-Notts through collecting and wrapping gifts!
The purpose of this blog is to give you all an insight into how important everyone’s contributions have been towards reaching this year’s target! With the help from large companies, local companies, recycling plants, church groups, schools, individual collectors and so many more we were able to reach our target and distribute all the chocolates to vulnerable children. This means that children who may not get a present this year will receive a lovely surprise and not feel lonely but cared for by their community! This is major towards their wellbeing as well as relieving families of some Christmas stress.
I have created a video of so many photos and videos to celebrate all the efforts this year. Being new to the charity, this has been the warmest welcome I could possibly have asked for. It has been a pleasure to meet so many people willing to contribute towards this amazing cause and this wouldn’t have been possible without your support! Thank you so much!
- Gwen x
