Northampton shop celebrates supporting families in the care system in the run up to Christmas
A Northampton shop is celebrating the fundraising done to support families in the care system in the run up to Christmas, as more than £500 was raised in just four weeks.
Jamie Baxter, the manager of Londis in Kings Heath, reached out to this newspaper to show that “community spirit is still alive and kicking” and that “good can outweigh the bad”.
The management team and staff members thought it would be a nice idea to host a charity fundraiser, and they unanimously agreed on wanting to make a difference to children and families in the care system.
They began by purchasing some ‘name the bear’ scratch cards and each had 50 panels with a different name underneath. They sold each name at £2 and with five cards filled in four weeks, they raised a total of £500.
Management member Nisha Odedra and store colleague Georgia Baxter took a trip to a toy shop and bought £400 worth – which ranged from being suitable for babies all the way to teenagers.
With such a haul of toys purchased with this money, they used the final £100 to buy Amazon vouchers for older teens who may prefer to choose their own gift.
The owners of the Londis store, the Odedra family, kindly donated all the bears and the contents of the hampers that were given to the name game winners. These were filled to the brim with goodies, including wine, chocolate and biscuits.
Jamie said: “All the staff and management at Londis would like to thank the local community for their support and generosity during our fundraising efforts. We would like to wish them all a wonderful Christmas and New Year.”
The toys and vouchers will be distributed by Northamptonshire Children’s Trust and the organisation thanked the store for their “beautiful gifts” – which they said will make a lot of children very happy this Christmas.