Our fourth ‘Sparkle’ Event and the Face Paint and Homemade Christmas Mask Competition
The reason ubu holds it’s annual ‘Sparkle’ events at Christmas is that as a caring group of people we want to find ways to see and then act on where we could spread some Christmas cheer in our local communities. The people we serve lead in how each of our areas deliver a Sparkle experience by focusing on issues that are important to them.
There were a number of people from the Blackpool area, living more independently enabled by ubu who talked about their experiences and struggles of being homeless or on low incomes. Many people shared the experience of having to rely on the generosity of others and how that felt.
Some of the people we serve have in the past needed to use food banks or local community cafes make sure that they had at least one hot meal once a day. Most people don’t ever have to think about that but the people we serve in Blackpool did and they thought it would be great if we could help out others who had not been as lucky as them to find support and somewhere to live.
There has been a 30% increase in the usage of food banks already this year and the northwest has the highest numbers in the country of people needing to go to food banks just to get by with the most basic of food. Last year North West totalled more than Scotland as a whole for people who needed emergency food parcels. Nearly 600,000 people used food banks in the northwest in the first half of this year and more than 250,000 were children.
The people we serve decided to collect Christmas hampers for families in need at Christmas. They wanted to make sure that our hampers were filled to the brim with Christmas cheer with treats like chocolate and sweets for those who might not get much under or anything under the tree this year.
“We delivered 120 kilos of good to the Trussell Trust Food Bank in St Anne’s. They told us that it was the largest donation they had received in a long time and that it really would brighten many peopl’s day to receive a little extra something in their boxes at Christmas.”
In Manchester, the Loaves and Fishes mission provides hot meals, showers and support to people who find themselves homeless or on a very low income at Christmas. They have recently started providing support to 80 people a day which has doubled over recent weeks. People we serve in the area have been very aware of the support and kindness this group give to people who are in need at Christmas. “We decided that they could make a real difference by supporting what Loaves and Fishes do in our community.”
“The donations sponsored by ubu we took along are going to be used during the Christmas holiday period to give people a really special Christmas Day. We also made a very special hamper which the people at Loaves and Fishes are going to raffle off to raise money and to give someone they think really needs it, a lovely Christmas gift.”
Our Unite@Christmas party event held at our Hub in Harrogate was filled with very excited people who say along with gusto to “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”. The competition today was for face painting and Christmas masks and we weren’t disappointed! There were some very creative entries and here are a few we thought were really brilliant…
