Rachael’s gift for helping people
MAN’S HEARTBREAKING STORY INSPIRES NHS WORKER TO COLLECT PRESENTS FOR THOSE WHO MAY BE FORGOTTEN
THE heartbreaking stor story of a lonely elderly patient spurred Derby hospital worker Rachael Robinson into action.
She decided she would collect gift packages for the h homeless, elderly and children in need to bring some joy at Christm Christmas.
The idea snowballed a and soon she found herself putting together scores of presents.
HOSPITAL worker Rachael Robinson was heartbroken when an elderly patient said he would have no one to share Christmas Day with.
So Rachael decided to do something about it by sending gift packages to the homeless, elderly and children in need.
The plan to create shoe boxes filled with Christmas presents began after Rachael, 49, spoke to an elderly man she was treating at Derby’s London Road Hospital, where she works in physical rehabilitation.
“He was waiting for transport and we were chatting and he was saying how he had nobody,” recalls Rachael. “He wasn’t lucky enough to have children and had lost his wife, and when he said that he nearly started crying, which broke my heart.
“After that I thought ‘You know, I’m going to try and do something for these people’ and that’s what inspired me and then it went crazy with donations.”
Rachael, from Darley Abbey, says that she received somewhere in the region of £1,000 in donations, including £300 from the Rolls-Royce branch of Unite. She has also received pre-made gift baskets and a wealth of clothes and other items people might need.
“One guy wasn’t doing Christmas this year with his wife, exchanging presents, so he said he went out and spent the money on us. So he bought five brand new sleeping bags, five sets of thermals, tops, bottoms, socks, hats.
“People who didn’t want to do boxes brought me items and I made stuff up here and made a box. We were running out of shoe boxes and by the end it turned to gift bags as we didn’t have enough.”
Once the shoe boxes were filled with gifts, Rachael and her partner Chris Tipper, 54, began distributing them with the help of Chris’s friends and Major Anthony Colclough from the Salvation Army in Derby.
Major Colclough said: “Our campaign this year is inviting people to be a star in their own individual way, and Rachael has been a big star, shining bright and bringing a little bit of light into a dark world in this present moment in time.”
The Salvation Army have been distributing Rachael’s gift packages to the elderly, children and single parents who may get forgotten about at this time of year.
Along with giving gifts to the Salvation Army, Rachael has also been working with the Padley Group in Derby city centre to distribute boxes, clothes and sleeping bags to the homeless of the city.
“I’ve had dealings with them before because my son used to play cricket. If there was any left over food we would take it to the Padley Centre and one of my friends did voluntary work there when she was training to be a nurse.
“The boxes I did for them I added some food too – shortbread, Christmas cake, mince pie, chocolate, every box was different but appropriate.”
Her partner Chris also took k sleepl ing bags to homeless men at the Pentagon and Markeaton Islands.
The last of the boxes were sent out on December 16, having been quarantined in Rachael’s home. She began the project on November 14, but never expected it to take off like it did.
“What I thought was just going to be 10 or 15 boxes exploded into over 100. It was hard work, very hard work, but so rewarding and we’ll do it again next year.
“I guess now I’ve got the bug, I am just asking when can we do it again?”
Rachael hopes to double the number of fb boxes she h makes k next year to 260 and will be starting a month earlier. She also hopes to arrange a similar scheme in the summer.
“It would be nice to do something apart from Christmas, sort of May or June time. I’d like to do something, but I don’t know what people’s reactions would be,” says Rachael.
“It’s the middle of the year that the homeless and the OAPs get forgotten about. So it’s definitely a thought in my head.
“I would probably do a hamper, something more summery. Everyone is pleased to get a present, aren’t they?”