Coming up to Christmas, Gratitude volunteers were thinking of those lovely children in our community who will be happy to receive gifts from Gratitude’s real Santa. Many of our volunteers asked their children’s schools and other parents to donate unwanted gifts to us to have them as gifts.
As if by magic, we were contacted by amazing groups and individuals who donated very generously.
Thank you to
- Stormont School and Little Elms Nursery collected many great toys and clothes, arranged by Lyla.
- JAM of Borehamwood donated wonderful new toys instead of their office secret Santa, arranged by Roxanne.
- Kidreams toy shop closed down and donated their stock, arranged by Jay and Sam.
- GRC Global donated many lovely toys, arranged by David.
- Elstree & Borehamwood Synagogue dropped off a wonderful collection of toys, arranged by Tanya.
- Penz, a very active Gratitude’s volunteer, collected great toys from local businesses.
- Alexis, a Gratitude’s volunteer from Mill Hill, collected toys from her contacts.
- The Mitre Team donated more than 30 sets of footballs, pumps and cones, arranged by Carolyn.
- Parents of children attending Cowley Hill Primary School donated many unwanted birthday gifts, arranged by Valeria.
- and many more kind donors.
Santa’s workshop
Countless hours went into sorting, wrapping up and labelling the gifts to make sure the right type and age-related toys go to the right children.
We would like to thank our hard working “Elves”:
- Smile project at Yavne College for fantastic toys wrapping up.
- DoE awards kids: Zack and Luis who assisted with gifts wrapping. Gabriela and Monique who helped Santa to give out gifts.
- The ladies of Gratitude’s Knitting for Charity group who were on hand for more toys wrapping.
- and a big thank you goes to Sarit and Valeria for organising and managing all groups to make sure all wrapping is neat and tidy.
The big day
On Sunday, 12th December Mr Santa visited Gratitude’s Hub. As he noticed so many lovely kids, he was delighted to hand out over 200 gifts that day with the help of our lovely elves.
Santa Claus is real. We all know this is true: Gratitude was very lucky as one of our kindest and warm-hearted donors became our real Santa for the day.
Brendan, a scriptwriter and actor from Barnet helped us recently with saved from waste donations and happened to have some time available for us to be our “special guest” for the day. It was around his birthday too! He did it very well, as children visiting our hub seem to be very happy receiving gifts from Santa and his team of elves.
Photos by Valeria Fazekas.
