MASSIVE CONGRATULATIONS TO GLASGOW SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS ON A GREAT SUCCESS AND A ABSOLUTE DELIGHT FOR US TO BE INVOLVED IN. CHRISTMAS GROUP THANK YOU! To all our members, our Glasgow’s Spirit of Christmas warehouse is now officially closed for 2014. From a full warehouse in picture 2 to an empty one in picture 1 in just 7 weeks. We raise a glass to EVERY MEMBER, VOLUNTEER and COMPANY to toast our sincere and MASSIVE THANKS for joining our Facebook appeal and having such kind and generous hearts. We have laughed, cried and met wonderful new friends during this appeal throughout our communities. Together we are all Secret Santa’s this year to a child living in poverty in Glasgow and the surrounding areas and our donations of gifts made with love will most certainly create a magical experience and bring a priceless smile to a child’s face on Christmas Day. When the big day comes we can all remember these children with love and feel proud that they will be included this year because we all took the time to give and remember what it’s like to be a child waking up on Christmas Day. These children, many for the first time, who tell us that Santa doesn’t come to their house...will know and feel that Santa has not forgotten them THIS YEAR and that somebody else cares! Just MAGICAL! When I started this appeal after learning that 1 in 5 children in Scotland and almost 1 in 3 children in Glasgow live in poverty and the shocking fact that most do not have a gift to open on Christmas Day, I never imagined for a second that it would grow beyond family and friends. In just 7 weeks our group member’s compassion, support and sharing by inviting friends to join our group has grown to a staggering almost 10,000 members! In just 7 weeks with everyone working together with a shared vision of every child having a gift to open on Christmas Day, we managed to receive an even more staggering 4,547 gifts with 3,147 shoebox gifts, xmas bags/toys and 1,400 books. We successfully worked closely with 24 charities and organisations to make sure our gifts would reach the right children in need and have distributed all of these gifts across 68 separate distribution points all over Glasgow and surrounding areas. I also launched a group page for Fife which is managed by Christine Munro and her team and we have managed to support many charities and Social Work departments with again huge success in excess of 4,000+ gifts across the whole of Fife. Fantastic results and huge well done to Christine and for the generosity and kindness from all nearly 15,000 group members in Fife! Every shoebox and xmas bag gift made with love for a girl or boy and age range of your choice had an average of 10 gift items inside. Our overwhelming generosity, care and compassion meant that we had to handle and safety check approximately 30,000 individual gifts in Glasgow alone and double that including the region of Fife. We are truly thankful of what we have all managed to achieve as a group in such a short space of time. The love, care and attention to detail poured into these gifts was awe-inspiring! To summarise our group’s gifts were allocated out to underprivileged and vulnerable children referred by: 1. Who Cares? Scotland 2. Kinship Alliance Glasgow North, South, West and East, North and South Lanarkshire and West Dumbartonshire 3. Homestart Renfrewshire 4. Children 1st, Glasgow 5. Hamish Allan Family Centre, Glasgow 6. Young Carers, South West Glasgow 7. Young Carers, East Renfrewshire 8. ER Good Causes 9. Foodbank, North Ayrshire, Ardeer, Ardrossan 10. Foodbank, South Ayrshire 11. Foodbank, Greater Maryhill 12. Foodbank, Barrhead 13. Women’s Aid – Clydebank, Drumchapel, Cumbernauld, Glasgow City Centre, Hamilton, East Kilbride, Renfewshire, Glasgow East, East Renfrewshire 14. Saheliya, Glasgow 15. Seamill Street Children’s Home 16. Preshall Trust, Govan 17. Temple Shafton Youth Project, Glasgow 18. Children’s Holiday Scheme Club 19. Primary and Secondary Schools 20. Social Work Dept 21. Health Visiting Team 22. Community Addiction Team 23. Welfare Rights Team 24. Zone 74/Lollipop Land – party for underprivileged children A grateful and heartfelt thank you to the following members, friends and family who volunteered their time and other resources to work at the many gift drop off points in and around Glasgow, at our warehouse, transportation or behind the scenes. Without all these incredibly giving individuals we would not have succeeded in handling and distributing such a huge volume of gifts in such a tight deadline. YOU ARE ALL AMAZING PEOPLE THANK YOU! Alison Smith, Alyson Rossi, Shabana Hussain, Paul Smith, Nancy Searby, Mark Searby, Tara Mark Mandagie, Linda Gillies, Selina Douglas, Susan McMillan, Aileen Friel, Claire Lovat, Rambo Levydog, Jane Stewart, Angela Scott, Nicola Strange, Jackie Duckett, Gillian Holmes, Lesley Samuels, Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Young, Sandra Kirkwood, Heather Fraser, Cathy Wilke-Thompson, Julie Cunningham, Louisa Quick, Morag White, Elaine Ellis, Ash Noble, Gail Anderson, Jennifer Smith, Patricia Meneely, Zack Griffin, Brad Rossi, Jacob Griffin, Callum Smith, John Bruce, Sally Cant, Lucinda McLean, Vicky Provan, Gillian Cox, Bet Dickie, Kirstin Lennox, Gill Christiansen and Lesley Anderson. Also a MASSIVE THANK YOU goes to; - The Daily Record for covering our appeal and follow up of our group’s success to help so many underprivileged children this year and for providing a storage facility. - Hansteen Industrial and Commercial Property for donating a huge warehouse facility when we grew so big so quickly. - STV Glasgow News, the online team and The Riverside Show for valuable airtime and web space for helping us to raise awareness of our appeal. - The Avenue Shopping Centre for providing a gift drop off location and helping us to spread the word. - The Extra, The Southside and East Renfrewshire News and The Rutherglen Reformer for covering our story and helping to spread the word. - David Jones -Target Market Scotland and Bernard Dowling - BD Dispatch, for donating and creating our group logo for Glasgow’s Spirit of Christmas and a Christmas Leaflet Ad to help spread the word. - Alyson Rossi for donating Public Liability Insurance for our events. - Bruce Coaches for donating vans to transport our gifts to our warehouse facility. - Jane Ritchie - GTW Storage Glasgow, Pauline Cameron -Jayz Bar Shawlands, Lynsey McGregor - Andells Restaurant & Tearoom, The Savoy Centre, Victoria Barnett - Universal Connections Rutherglen, Arden Chill Out, Gillian Graham - Cambuslang Institute, Kelly Ellis – Health & Well Being Holistic Clinic, Cambuslang, Silverburn carpark, Patterton Carpark for providing valuable gift drop off points. - Mairi Claire McManus - Better World Books and Jamie Dynan - Junk Ants for donating and delivering 1200 children’s books. - Cathy Forde – Glaswegian Novelist for teens for donating some of her books. - Wrap it Up, Silverburn for donating spare Christmas Bags. Another huge thank you to the following companies who supported our appeal. It is wonderful to see local businesses supporting children in need across our communities and hopefully they have encouraged others to follow in their footsteps next year. - Kerr Brown Partnership - Scottish Power, Retail Finance Team - Audi Glasgow - Teekay Shipping (Glasgow) Ltd - James Gray Recruitment, Newton Mearns - Kwik Fit, Uddingston - HR Consultancy, Glasgow City Centre - The Avenue shopping centre, Newton Mearns - City Sprint, Glasgow - Walker Scaffolding - Barrhead Auto Centre - Harvey Nash, Scotland - Turner & Townsend - Alea Casino, Glasgow Glasgow’s and Fifes Spirit of Christmas believes that every child deserves to have presents to open on Christmas Day no matter what their parent’s circumstances are. Our vision for next year is to see every child living in poverty in Scotland being included in the magic and spirit of Christmas and know that they have not been forgotten even if it’s just for one day. Will you join us and make it happen? We ask each of our members to help us continue to spread the word by inviting your friends list to join us and asking them to do the same. We hope we can work together throughout 2015 to build upon our success this year and make a significant difference next year. This community appeal is about lots of people donating one gift made with love for one child because together we can achieve so much more to be proud of. If you would like to get involved and volunteer next year please let us know. We would also ask schools and companies across our communities to join our Christmas gift appeal next year and be a Secret Santa to a child living right here in Scotland that would otherwise not be receiving gifts at Christmas. Please send me a PM to pledge your support if your company or school can support our appeal in any way to help us achieve our vision. The Spirit of Christmas appeal can be run in cities and regions right across Scotland so if any of our members know of anyone wanting to join us and host a subsidiary group please send me a pm with details. We will also be looking for company donations in 2015 from gifts to Christmas bags and boxes to transport and store product discounts for our members so if you are a company and can support us in Glasgow, Fife or any other Region in Scotland in any way again please let me know. We still have our exciting Christmas Party on the 22nd December kindly donated by Zone 74 and Lollipop Land in Playsport, East Kilbride for underprivileged children and will post more about this over the next week. In the meantime THANK YOU ALL AGAIN for taking part in this wonderful Spirit of Christmas journey and giving so generously! You have made a huge difference to so many children this year for the happiest Christmas ever! xxx
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 21:50:36 +0000
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