Twelfth Night

Have you taken down all your tinsel, baubles or other festive ornaments?

If not, then folklore says that they should stay up all year! But don’t worry, it’s only 354 days until Christmas Day again!

5^th January is known as Twelfth Night – a tradition when all Christmas decorations should be removed by so as not to bring bad luck upon the home.

As many of us prepare to return to work and school on Monday (some will groan, some may rejoice!) we still want to squeeze the last bit of good cheer from the festive season!

Reverse Advent Calendar

We were overwhelmed by both the generosity of local people in all our communities and also YMCA staff members who joined in on the kindness.  Items donated ranged from sweets, tinned goods, baby items and warm clothing. Unlike food banks we also distributed fresh food items ensuring that local families had an extra smile over the festive time.

Thank you to everyone that supported this appeal and helped to make a difference to another family.

Wave 105 Mission Christmas: Cash for Kids

 Kind-hearted individuals, organisations and local businesses helped children at Southampton’s YMCA nurseries to have a fantastic Christmas with a huge amount of toy donations that were generously donated by members of the public through Wave 105’s annual Mission Christmas appeal.

The YMCA are very grateful for the donations from the Mission Christmas Appeal. The community responded brilliantly to the appeal and as in previous years, the gifts were fantastic and well-suited to the ages of our children and helped to bring Christmas cheer to some of our families. Our nursery managers were overwhelmed by the generosity of the scheme and can see the difference it truly makes to some children’s lives at this special time of the year.

YMCA Walice the Fox Charity Christmas Card

WOW what a brilliant turn out the YMCA 2018 Christmas card competition was – we received over 100 entries!  

Children from schools and nurseries across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight took part in the annual Christmas card design competition to raise funds for YMCA, organised by the charity’s mascot “Walice the Fox”. The theme was “What does Christmas mean to you?”.

Walice had a difficult task deciding who from four different geographical areas should win prizes. Corin Ball, Walice’s assistant, said, “The children really used their imagination to capture the meaning of Christmas.”

Thank you to everyone that took part and purchased packs, the money raised will go towards helping fund our work in your local communities. Look out later in the year to take part in Walice’s competition for 2019!