Local NHS staff are helping provide Christmas hampers this year.
Staff from Complex Neurodevelopmental Disorders Service (CNDS), Adolescent Bipolar Service (ABS) and Drive Mobility all part of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (NTW) all decided to help a local organisation called Feeding Families North East.
The organisation helps support families who are struggling financially by providing them with Christmas hampers.
The way that the Christmas hampers works is that a team agree to pledge a hamper, Feeding Families will then match you with a suitable family in need. Once matched it is up to you to contact the family and ask if there are any dietary requirements and organise delivery.
The response from the three teams was phenomenal and instead of providing one hamper there was enough donations to provide three, which will provide food and gifts to 12 people. As well as the hampers they received cash donations of over £100 to help buy fresh items such as the Christmas turkey and all the trimmings!
I saw an appeal on social media and decided to ask work colleagues who would be interested in doing a collective hamper.
Everyone’s response was a resounding yes. We were given a Christmas list of items to buy and within an hour we had pledges for a full hamper, this led to us to requesting to support other families
Deborah GarlandSpecialist Parent Advisor
Deborah Garland organised the collection along with Colin Noutch from Drive Mobility.