Community Activities, News
The thoughtful team at W. Storey Funeral in Redcar Road, Guisborough, wanted to do something to help the local community over the festive season, and came up with the idea to run a shoebox appeal where people could fill up the boxes with gifts for children.
The Children and Family Services team at Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council provided the ages and genders of children who would benefit from the appeal, and Storey’s marked the boxes so the gifts could be filled accordingly. After asking their social media followers to get involved, the team were overwhelmed by the response and wrapped and returned the boxes to the council to distribute earlier this month. Funeral Arranger Francesa Capaldi- helped organise the appeal which saw more than 50 boxes filled.
She said: “I was overwhelmed at the generosity of the local community, it was very touching to see the lengths people had gone to, to ensure that children in our area will wake up to something special on Christmas morning.
One lady had hand knitted most of the contents of her box as she had a small baby and these items were beautiful. Another couple, who filled a box each, had wrapped all their contents in beautiful tissue paper to make the element of opening it that bit more special. When we delivered the shoe boxes to the council, it was magical to see how overwhelmed the team was and it made me feel proud of the local community for their efforts and for making this happen.”