Mass wrap tonight as community 'rallies to help children this Christmas'
Volunteers are tonight joining a mass present wrapping event
Last updated 15th Dec 2022
Hundreds of gifts are being wrapped tonight to help struggling children in Torbay.
Daisy Fuge, from Rev Comps, is working with the Torbay-based Re4orm charity |newtab) and is aiming to help raise £37,000 for children in struggling families to get presents on the 25th. Donations from retailers also been added |newtab) to help increase the number of gifts being offered.
Ms Fuge said: 'Some of these children's families will have to choose between food or heat, or neither and Christmas will be another normal day unless we as a community step in to bring some joy to those little faces.
"As parents ourselves, we cannot imagine how it must feel to not be able to see those little eyes light up when Santa has been, So we’ve taken action
"Reform work together with Torbay council and all the schools across the bay to collect information for all children who live in poverty or on the poverty line, of which there are thousands. Even more so this year, we are seeing the numbers flying up with the cost of living crisis.
"Torbay is the number one borough in the UK for the percentage of families living in poverty sitting at 38% of households. It’s a really scary number.
"A very good friend of mine owns a well known Online Car raffle revcomps.com. I recently introduced Robbie (owner of Revcomps) to Reform charity Torbay and their previous work in the hope that collectively we could try to support all the children living in poverty across Torbay this Christmas.
"So, together with myself and Revcomps, we are planning to raise as much money as possible to help. It is our Christmas mission to buy every family who’s information we are provided by the schools their Christmas gifts this year.
"Rev comps has pledged to donate 10p from every ticket for two weeks and so far has raised £16.5k - we have a few days to go and are fund raising a further £20k due to the success of the previous one and the outpour of support.
"We are looking at a total of £37,000 to spend on the children of Torbay. I am also delighted to say that since we have begun our social media campaign and been travelling around buying from local businesses for the children, we have had other local businesses donate a further £1,000-plus to our cause.
"We are also working closely with The Entertainer who have also donated heavily towards our shopping spree. We will be shopping for over 600 children and our total of families keeps going up with more schools and social clubs coming forward. "
Tonight a mass wrapping has been taking place at Revcomps HQ in Yalberton industrial estate with a food van, live DJ, an inflatable igloo and snow machine to entertain all the helpers.