Day 6 of ubu’s Unite@Christmas

Our sixth ‘Sparkle’ Event and the Christmas Table Decoration Competition

There is a local church in Darlington nearby one of the ubu services where people, enabled to live with more independence sometimes go. Each year the Kings Church hold a free Christmas event for ‘underprivileged’ children.

While most of us are enjoying plenty, even excess over the Christmas period, sadly there are many families who are struggling just to make ends meet. Winter is a particularly expensive time of year for all of us anyway, especially with extra heating and food bills coming in.

Christmas is an extra expense which is impossible to ignore but for many low income families it means even more hardship and disappointment. They just cannot afford the luxury of Christmas celebrations. It means people often have to make some very hard choices.

Part of the magic of Christmas is seeing the day through a child's eyes. The Kings Church Foodbank is a place where anyone who finds themselves in times of hardship can come and receive a welcoming, emergency bag of food. This year some of the people we serve in Darlington approached Kings Church Foodbank and asked them how they could help to give them so ‘Sparkle’.

The surprising answer was that the Foodbank said that they had no advent calendars or selection boxes for the children. Everyone agreed that those are simple delights at Christmas that many of us take for granted. So it was agreed that toward the end of November, in good time for Christmas, using some money donated by ubu, people we serve in Darlington would give the Foodbank some proper ‘Sparkle’ to share with the children they support by bringing along 100 advent calendars and selection boxes

“It felt really nice to be able to give something so small and know that it would give so much pleasure to the children”. Caroline from the Kings Church Foodbank wrote to us saying “I just want to say a big Thank You...it is so lovely to see the hearts of people coming together to help those who are less fortunate than others…we hope you all have a very special Christmas”.

This year our theme has been Unite@Christmas. The people we serve, our enabling teams and our friends and neighbours have come together in so many ways to make our theme a reality. Today, our competition has been for Christmas Table Decorations. Everyone who joined in produced something really lovely and by working together have made some truly special trimmings for our own celebrations.

Follow us @ubusupport