The Gresham team has bought a bumper crop of presents this year for a local children’s charity in our annual Christmas campaign. In this fourth year of supporting Wythenshawe Barnardo’s Children’s Centres, we have been able to buy gifts for 13 children to hopefully bring some festive cheer on Christmas Day.
Our festive charity gift campaign started in 2014 after Samantha, who is a Paraplanner on our technical team, suggested that instead of spending money on novelty gifts for each other, we combined our secret Santa spend to contribute to a more meaningful cause.
Wanting to keep things local, we found Wythenshawe Barnardo’s Children’s Centres. Each year, the Barnardo’s teams at the Children’s Centres in Wythenshawe supply us a list of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, along with their ages. One afternoon in the run up to Christmas, our team go out shopping to buy gifts for each of the children listed. The gifts are then delivered to the children by the Barnardo’s team in Wythenshawe in time for Christmas Day.
This year, with a little help from Gresham’s Directors, our charitable fund was £500, which allowed us to buy gifts for 13 children. In addition, this year we were also able to buy some essential food and drink items to top up the food banks also based at the various Barnardo’s Children’s Centres in Wythenshawe.
Morven Millar, Director at Gresham, commented:
“This is the fifth year we’ve supported our local Barnardo’s Children’s Centres and it’s a tradition we’re proud to be able to uphold. Our team love getting involved and going to buy the gifts for the children, who might otherwise not receive anything at Christmas time.
“Amongst the hustle and bustle of this time of the year, we should all take a moment to reflect on how lucky we are and spare a thought, a bit of money and some time for those that are less fortunate”.