Operation Santa Report 2014
All you need is a miracle … The 2014 appeal has been the most successful ever, with a staggering 12,258 donations! That’s no mean feat when the economic outlook is still fairly dire and people are struggling to make ends meet and keep a roof over their heads, without supporting local charities. Compiling this year’s report following another successful Operation Santa, I am struck by the fact that despite feeling the squeeze on their finances, especially at this time of year, local people and businesses have still dug deep and we have still managed to co-ordinate another successful toy appeal and reach more local children and young people than ever! I think the strength of our appeal, apart from the incredible people who’ve supported it, is that we are a local appeal for local children in Dudley borough. Our ethos has always been to make a difference locally and why support overseas aid, when there are children and young people living in poverty on our doorstep! To make it even easier to support us this year we put together a ‘wishlist’ of suggested gifts, including items such as food and toiletries, to support our fellow charity ‘Black Country Foodbank’. We launched our Operation Santa Appeal with a very special guest. Brett Harris from Blaze Hair, who’s a huge supporter of Operation Santa, invited his friend ‘Simon’, to help us launch the appeal and here they are in the salon, along with the Blaze Angels and another Brett from Bretts Barbers Shops. ‘Simon’ said: “Brett has been a fantastic supporter of the Dudley CVS Operation Santa appeal for several years and each year he surpasses himself with both the number and quality of the toys and games he collects and donates and which make a huge difference to thousands of under-privileged kids in Dudley borough,” said ‘Simon,’ adding, “Brett and Dudley CVS get my vote, they certainly have got the X-mas Factor.”
Social media keeps everyone updated As in previous years the Operation Santa blog was used to promote the Appeal and as the donations climbed, daily updates were posted on the blog and more people started following the progress. In fact we now have 1146 followers. We had 244 hits on one day alone and lots of comments and sharing via Twitter, and our new Facebook page, which was a runaway success with 111 likes and lots of conversations about how the appeal was progressing. I really feel this has helped to boost this year’s appeal even further and lets people ask questions about what we do. Why not visit: www.operationsanta.wordpress.com to read about our adventures this year and be ready to follow next year’s appeal by signing up for updates? Or you can follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Operationsanta.Dudleyborough
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Businesses get involved Yet again local businesses leapt in to support the appeal, many of them introduced to Operation Santa by Brett from Blaze Hair. Accord Steel Cladding Paul Billingsley, a gym buddy of Brett’s and owner of a local business, kick-started Operation Santa with a £250 donation for the Pencil Case Appeal. Here he is top right, with Brett and the Blaze Angels, who spent a hectic afternoon stuffing 100 pencil cases ready for local kids. Paul was the winner of this year’s Business Supporting the Community Award, for his charitable contributions. Paul also gave us £1000 towards Christmas parties, which was shared out amongst 15 groups all across Dudley borough. Thanks Paul ☺ It wouldn’t be Operation Santa without Brett and the girls from Blaze Hair Kingswinford. They adopted Operation Santa a couple of years ago and Brett is a prolific collector of toys, gifts etc. from clients, friends, family and anyone who’ll donate. He is on a mission to reach as many disadvantaged local children as possible and received our first Business Supporting the Community Award in 2013. This year, by galvanising friends, family, colleagues, customers and lots of local businesses, he was the catalyst to a jaw-dropping 7647 toys, gifts and food items! The list of businesses he encouraged to support us grew daily and included SPAR, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s, Gap, amongst others. Here are a few photos of Brett on his marathon donation gathering journey! Thomas from T Heath Light Haulage, who has also supported the appeal for many years, sent us a cheque and then organised a quiz night and swear box in the Portway Inn, Kingswinford, sending us a second cheque to boost the appeal. Sue & Geoff Hill supported us as always with a cash donation and gathering donations at their shop in Amblecote. Businesses who supported us last year got back in touch to support the appeal too. Erik’s, Ice Blue and Mason’s Metals, very generously gave us donations again and we are so grateful for their support and appreciate the fact that they have chosen Operation Santa. Here’s Paul MD of Ice Blue, dropping off a huge box of donations
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Tim and Tina Pace who are local Kleeneze distributors, again approached us to support the appeal and arrived at the office laden with boxes of new toys, plus a cash donation. Nicklins supported us again this year as always, with a huge pile of donations which helped to boost our total. We have a long history with Harvey from Nicklins as he used to be Treasurer to the Hope Charity, who supported Operation Santa for many years, fundraising each year to ensure that local disadvantaged children and young people got gifts at Christmas. ASDA Halesowen offered to support us and Sam Warby, their Community Colleague was sure we’d get lots of donations and we certainly did. Here’s a picture of us with the haul of goodies that were donated by both customers and staff. Wow, it certainly helped to boost our donations total.
Staff at Avery Weigh-Tronix in Foundry Lane, Smethwick have forgone the traditional Secret Santa present giving and receiving this year, electing, instead, to donate over 300 gifts to the annual Dudley CVS Operation Santa Toy Appeal. Eriks supported the appeal again, collecting toys and gifts to boost the donations.
Who else supported us? I thought I’d share some of the stories we shared via social media about the people who supported us below:
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Glynne Primary School - Pupils chose presents they would like to receive themselves up to the value of £15 and then immediately put the present into the collection to be donated to Operation Santa Toy Appeal. The idea to make the donations came from ten-year-olds Will Trinham and Isabelle Allport, who are Chair Boy and Chair Girl on the pupil committee. Will and Isabelle, together with fellow pupils, Millie Groobey and Aimee Tuckley, helped deliver the gifts to the Dudley CVS offices in Brierley Hill this week. Millie said, “We wanted to do something for somebody who doesn’t have anything.”
Jim White and Dudley North Neighbourhood Watch – supported us again this year, with lots of great donations for the Pencil Case Appeal.
Challenge Network – young people from the Challenge Network put on an event in Dudley Town Centre to raise awareness of Operation Santa, Black Country Foodbank and the Creative Support Christmas Party. Thanks to their enthusiasm they collected an amazing 100 brand new donations for the appeal.
Kingswinford Football Club – Simon, Carl and Mike from the club raised funds at a big charity event to purchase a pile of brand new toys from Smyths in Kidderminster and the Manager Mark, gave them a discount, so they could buy even more! Dudley MBC Staff – threw themselves into supporting the Appeal yet again, with a collection point set up at the Council House and collecting an amazing number of gifts, food etc., amounting to 1206 items.
Local people also supported the appeal with enthusiasm too, dropping donations of toys, books, games and food into various collection points and the Dudley CVS offices. Many of these support us every single year! Other supporters - the fabulous people, organisations and businesses who generously supported this year’s Appeal are listed on our blog: https://operationsanta.wordpress.com/supporters/
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££££££££ The finances swelled with donations from members of the public and the business community, including: Paul Billingsley from Accord Steel Cladding Geoff and Sue Hill T. Heath Light Haulage [two separate cheques] Tim and Tina Pace from Kleeneze Madeleine Cowley Southdown Materials Testing Hayley Group PLC Plus donations from local people We had some truly amazing items donated such as kids’ scooters and bikes, mountain bikes, X-boxes with games, a Play Station and even a Nintendo DS.
Christmas Parties Operation Santa wouldn’t be the same without Christmas Parties and these are a great way to make the money donated go a long way. Thanks to the generous donation from Paul Billingsley and topped up with other donations, we were able to fund an amazing 19 Christmas parties. That meant that over
700 local children and young people enjoyed a Christmas Party. We’ve had some great thank you cards and photos and a few of these are below, as well as on the blog.
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Party Time at St Thomas’s Community Network Dudley!
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Final Figures
12258
Items of food, toys and gifts were donated.
7647
Of those were collected by Brett and his army of supporters.
2042
Were items such as food, toiletries etc for the Foodbank
648
Items were donated for our Pencil Case Appeal, such as calculators, pencil cases, etc.
9568
That’s an incredible to children and young people from Operation Santa.
toys, gifts, pyjamas, clothing etc. distributed
I think this can be counted as an unreserved success and hopefully it will be matched or better still, exceeded in 2015. 9
The difference it makes! Let’s be honest though, Operation Santa isn’t about numbers, it’s about making a real difference to local children and young people who would be expecting little or nothing under the tree on Christmas morning. We had some emotional appeals from families in crisis through Social Services and other channels. Thanks to the generosity of all our amazing supporters we were able to save Christmas for these children. There have been lots of stories on the blog to tell people about the children and young people Operation Santa supports, but I just wanted to share a few with you. I’ve included feedback where I have it.
We had a crisis call on the Monday before Christmas for a family in dire need who’d called into We Love Carers for help. There was money in the Operation Santa pot, so Donna Roberts and I went shopping to get presents for this and another family. As you can see from the photos we had a great time shopping and lovely thank you letter from the family. We received a heartfelt thank you letter from the family. This is what Operation Santa is all about and it makes what we do so worthwhile!
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Recipients Each year we are asked where the donated items go and the answer is quite simply to a child or young person in need. We work with local voluntary, community, faith and statutory sector groups, who support vulnerable and disadvantaged children, young people and families across the borough. The gifts collected often help to make Christmas for them, when otherwise it’s likely they would receive nothing or have little to celebrate. Many of the groups we work with are out there providing support to families in crisis, who have nowhere else to turn. It’s difficult to get feedback or allow people to meet the children and families that Operation Santa supports, as in some cases there may be safeguarding concerns. Please rest assured that whatever you have donated has gone to a child or family in need, who are eligible for support from Operation Santa. For many of these children, your gift could be the only thing they get this Christmas! 3rd Brierley Hill Scouts
Hope Centre
Albion Street Church
Lapal Pre-School Playgroup
Black Country Foodbank
Manor Way Pre-School
Brierley Hill Children's Centre
Marbles
Brierley Hill Project
Mount Pleasant Methodist Church
Bromley Children's Centre
Noah's Ark Toddler Group
Bromley Hills School
Our Lady of Lourdes Moms & Toddlers Group
CHADD Christmas Party
Roberts Primary - Family
Dudley Bliss
St Thomas's Community Network
Dudley Foster Carers
Stourbridge & Halesowen LIFE
Families x 38
Summerhill Community Centre
Glynnie Tots Parents & Babies
Sycamore Adventure
Heaven's Kitchen
Top Church
Holy Trinity Church Wordsley
Welcome Group
Home Start
And others
Huge Thanks Thank you to everyone who contributed to this year’s appeal and let’s hope this year’s is another unqualified success, ensuring the Dudley HOPE legacy lives on.
Eileen Fielding Volunteer Centre Development Officer [aka Santa’s not so little helper]
January 2015
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