Colchester’s Culver Square launched its annual giving tree appeal and with the help of Colchester Foodbank, Colchester BID, and the community, 829 children received a present ahead of the Christmas Day.
The project relies on toy donations from the public to make a child’s Christmas wish come true.
To support the initiative Community360 put a call out to its strong team of volunteers asking if they could help with roles such as managing the shop front; discussing the project with the public, sorting presents and issuing gift labels to generous people. Volunteers kindly came forward and a rota was set up by the Volunteer Centre.
The feedback from our volunteers was very positive with many saying they had enjoyed their time volunteering for the project. Volunteer Diana Hayter originally only planned to volunteer for one day but as she enjoyed it so much she asked to volunteer more time to help .
She said “We as volunteers are here to support people. I really enjoyed meeting and working with people who understood the cause it was heart warming to see people bringing gifts and some people bringing extra gifts in case there are children left without presents”.
With the help of Community360 volunteers the shop was open for collections for at least three days a week from 16th November to 8th December. There was a donation made for every child, and many people donated extra presents including the local TK Maxx store who brought over a bundle of gifts. David Robertson from the Giving Tree commented “This is our third, and most successful year doing this project. This Success has been largely due to the help of the Community360 volunteers who have enabled us to open the shop more often which has given the public more opportunity to drop presents off and pick up labels all the volunteers have been polite, helpful, and empathetic to public overall a really positive experience.”
A huge thank you to everyone who volunteered for this project!
