Community Activities, News
In October 2023 Francesca Capaldi approached Christine Hotchkiss, the Deputy Team Manager in Children and Family Services within the local Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council. Fran wanted to gain an insight into the children within the local area that may go without gifts this Christmas and find out if there was any scope for W. Storey’s to start a shoe box appeal for these children.
Fran was given the ages and genders of over 50 children who would meet these criteria.
Within 1 week of the appeal launching on social media, 30 boxes had gone and 10 had gone and come back filled with Christmas gifts.
All boxes were returned to W. Storeys on 13th December and wrapped with ribbons and bows to emphasise they were Christmas gifts. Due to regulations from the council, we had to check every box to ensure the content was acceptable.
Fran said:” I was overwhelmed at the generosity of the local community, it was very emotional to see the efforts people had gone to, to ensure one child in our area woke up to something special. One lady hand knitted most of the content of her box as she had a small baby and these items were beautiful, another couple, who took a box each, had wrapped all their contents in beautiful tissue paper to make the element of opening it that bit more special.”
On Thursday 14th December the shoe boxes were delivered to Christine and her team.
A big thank you to all, no child should go without and thanks to everyone involved, over 50 vulnerable children will have some magic on Christmas morning.