Christmas hampers for struggling families

Aim

The aim of the Christmas hamper project is to provide a Christmas lunch hamper for disadvantaged families in Salford and Manchester.

In Salford, almost 54% of residents are living in the wards which are among the 25% most deprived in England. This means that families living in poverty may have less than £11 per day per person to buy everything they need.  The number of families living below the poverty line has increased and many families will struggle to provide a Christmas dinner for their family this Christmas never mind presents.

The Community Change Programme (CCP) has, in previous years, raised funds to provide struggling families in Salford with a Christmas hamper providing them with a Christmas meal and the trimmings.  This year, we would like to provide families with this life line in an area where poverty is a huge issue.

We work with local schools and agencies, who nominate families they work with who are the most needy. We pack the hampers on the 23rd December and deliver them to the families ready for Christmas day.

Project objectives

The project objective is to provide disadvantaged families with a memorable Christmas by providing them with a Christmas lunch which they might not otherwise be able to afford. 

The project will help to:

• Ease the financial pressure of families at Christmas not having to think about how they are going to afford Christmas lunch.
• Create an atmosphere to encourage family cohesion at Christmas.

Project outline

We want to provide a Christmas lunch including a dessert, drink and items to help sustain them for the Christmas season.

The Christmas hampers will contain Christmas goodies such as a turkey, vegetables, stuffing, gravy, dessert, drinks, bread, condiments and chocolates.

CCP will mobilise volunteers to pack the hampers and then to deliver the hampers to the families.  Volunteers will be from local churches and the community, and we hope that it will foster community engagement at Christmas time and be an opportunity for people to volunteer during the season.

We will identify the families that have a real need for the Christmas hampers by partnering with various agencies, i.e. social services, schools, that can refer names for families that would benefit from a hamper.

Partnerships

In previous years, we have partnered with a number of local businesses to provide hampers.  They consist of local agencies and schools to identify the most needy families, and local businesses who have provided funding to enable us to help more people.  They include:

Lark Hill Community school, Oasis Academy MediaCity, Sainsburys, Asda, Aldi, Wareworks, Victory Outreach Church, The Angel Centre, and Cyril Flint Befreinding service.

We will continue to identify potential partners to connect with for the project in terms of local schools, churches, Local authority agencies, food banks, superstores and food providers, local businesses and local media.

We would like to raise £3500 which would enable us to provide 50 families with a Christmas hamper which would really make a difference to these families lives this Christmas.

This project closed unsuccessfully on 7th November 2017