Harrogate hospital hoping to spread "festive sparkle" with hamper scheme
Teams delivered over a thousand hampers last year to their service users and are hoping to do the same this year
Last updated 25th Oct 2021
Business in North Yorkshire who want to spread some festive sparkle are being asked to get on board a local hospital initiative.
Harrogate Hospital & Community Charity (HHCC) are asking for support in providing hampers to bring Christmas to life for families across the region.
Last year the charity provided over 1,000 festive hampers to children, families and young people across County Durham, Darlington, Gateshead, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Middlesbrough, Stockton-On-Tees and Sunderland.
Sally Lambert, Business Development, Charity and Volunteer Manager at Harrogate District Foundation Trust, said: "We deliver them as a beautiful, cardboard box and they're filled with all these amazing treats for people to enjoy. It's just lovely and we got amazing feedback from people last year. It's a way for us to spread some festive sparkle.
"I've never seen as much hot chocolate, drinks, custard and Christmas puddings. Every box had four Christmas puddings in because we just had so many donated. We had 4000 of them and it was just incredible to see.
"It's slightly different to what food banks and other charities might do in that our clinical terms choose service users who they think might be in need of some festive cheer and we get our clinical teams, colleagues and our amazing volunteers out to deliver them and they turn into our elf army."
This year HHCC are asking for local businesses, to donate non-perishable foods, drinks, new books or other festive goodies to fill up this year’s hampers and help those in need.
Yvonne Campbell, Head of Charity and Business Development Project Manager, said: “Last year we had wonderful feedback from those who received our festive hampers, and after another difficult year we would like to impart the same magical feeling to those who are vulnerable or in need across the HDFT footprint.
“Without the generosity of local business and communities we wouldn’t have been able to achieve this last year and this year we hope to send 1,200 to the community. Any support will make a huge impact to those in need this winter.”
Anyone who wants to contribute towards HHCC’s cause you can contact the team to discuss at hdft.hhcc@nhs.net before Thursday 28 October.