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.
Over 88,000 children in the South go to bed in the evening without a hot meal, or are living in a house without central heating. For these families, Christmas is a luxury they just cannot afford. Many families can find Christmas a very difficult time and the YMCA nursery teams work hard to support and bring joy and happiness to them.
YMCA Southampton Area Director, Andrew Simpson said: “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.”
Every year Wave 105 Cash for Kids runs its Mission Christmas campaign, to ensure that presents are given to children and teenagers living in poverty in the South. Last year listeners, charity supporters and businesses donated presents in November and December. These presents were sorted and collated by volunteers and then collected by charities. Samantha Tanner, Wave 105 Cash for Kids Charity Manager, said, “In a tough economic climate Mission Christmas campaign puts a smile on a child’s face, who may be living in difficult financial conditions, by giving them a present. This wouldn’t happen without the generosity of people and companies in our local community donating the presents”
Wave 105 Cash for Kids supports local children, under the age of 18 who are financially, socially, emotionally or physically disadvantaged. Since its launch in November 2008, the charity has helped to raise over four million two hundred and forty-five thousand pounds.
Weston’s YMCA Nursery manager, Sarah Terry, said “The gifts we received were fantastic. We had a Christmas party and seeing the children’s faces filled with excitement was just brilliant. Some of the children in our care probably weren’t fortunate to receive gifts like this before which was clear when they opened them. We are really grateful to everyone who donated, thank you”.
To offer further support of the Wave 105 community campaign, the YMCA Fairthorne Group, offered the community space of Weston Library as a gift donation drop off point and was delighted to collect around 90 gifts to contribute to the campaign. Regular library users were pleased to support the appeal and spread the message within the Weston area of Southampton.