Unfortunately, not every child and family will wake up this Christmas to a house full of presents and for many families; that is just a dream. Halfway House pub managers and parents themselves; Gemma and Mandy decided that not waking up to a present or food on Christmas Day just wasn’t right, so together with Halton Children’s Centres they have helped to change this!
Halton Children’s Centres provide many different children and family services and one of these services includes collecting donations of new (and nearly new) toys and gifts to add to food hampers to help the families who need it most at Christmas.
The Halfway House in Runcorn saw this as an opportunity to get involved with the community and make someone’s Christmas magical! The Christmas gift appeal asked customers to bring in gifts ranging from soft toys to rattles to bath bombs and toiletry sets making sure that all children from age 0-16 were included.
The pub also ran a raffle with various prizes including a 32” TV; which raised £150 and was also used to buy more presents. Together with the presents bought from the raffle and the presents donated by the lovely customers; Gemma and the team transported 25 black bin liners full of toys to the Children’s Centre which took 3 trips in the car!!
Manager of the Halfway House, Gemma Schön commented: “The amount of presents we received was just amazing! We even got orders off Amazon with toys and chocolate in them! We are so overwhelmed by the generosity of our customers and it is great to know that there will be children with big smiles on their faces on Christmas morning because of what we have all done.”
