Please drop gifts in as soon as you can
Donations to the Observer’s Give A Gift Appeal are continuing to flood in to drop-off points across the area, with many workplaces also holding group collections.
Observer staff will be starting to gather in the toys and gifts over the coming days and weeks before sorting and readying them for pick up by the charities in a couple of weeks time.
Generous readers who may still have items to donate are being asked to please drop them at the drop-off points as soon as possible to help with organisation.
Reporter Kaiya Marjoribanks said: “It’s quite an operation to get everything brought together and sorted before the charities’ collection day, but we are always only too happy to do it.
“It would be great to get a head start, particularly as the logistics at the moment are understandably more complex, but we’ll be doing our best to get everything in right up until the collection day, which is likely to be in the week beginning December 13.”
Running since 2008, the appeal receives and distributes donations of new toys and gifts for sick, disabled, needy and disadvantaged children and young people aged from babies to teenagers.
Collected with the kind support of a host of drop-off points across the area, the gifts are distributed via a wide range of charities, large and small.
Among the charities and good causes which help to distribute gifts are Stirling Council’s social services, Stirling Young Carers, Home-Start Stirling, PLUS, Cornton Vale and Glenochil Family
Hubs, Barnardo’s and Stirling Women’s Aid, Forth Valley Royal Hospital’s children’s ward, and Support4Families, as well as several community groups and organisations.
If you would like to organise a collection of gifts at your workplace, school or group, would like to be one of our official drop-off points, or would simply like more information, contact the Observer by phone on (01786) 451110 or email: news@stirlingobserver.co.uk or kaiya. marjoribanks@reachplc.com.
We will aim to photograph and feature as many collections as possible in the Observer in the run-up to Christmas.
Drop-off points include: STIRLING – Morrisons supermarket, Springkerse Retail Park; Barber Co, 20 Upper Craigs
FK8 2DG; Nationwide Building Society, Port Street; Jintz Express, 1, 5 Munro Rd, Stirling FK7 7SY; Waitrose, Burghmuir Retail Park FK7 7NZ; ABERFOYLE Intrepid, Main St, Aberfoyle, FK8 3UG; BALFRON Andrew Anderson & Sons, 64B Buchanan Street G63 0TW; BANNOCKBURN – Jintz Express/Post Office, 17 Quakerfield; CALLANDER Tesco Express, Main Street; DUNBLANE – Beech Tree Cafe, 2 Beech Road; FALLIN - Tesco Express, Stirling Rd FK7 7JW; RAPLOCH - Andrew Anderson & Sons 90 Drip Road FK8 1RN.
•Toys and gifts – Gifts should be new and unused and left unwrapped. This year we would ask supporters not to donate cuddly toys if possible as the charities may have difficulty placing these for health and hygiene reasons.
•Vouchers – Given the current pandemic, we are also giving the option of donating gift cards and vouchers to offer some flexibility to both those donating and to the charities.
Please mail vouchers and cards, marked Stirling Observer Toy Appeal, c/o Kaiya Marjoribanks, Mailroom, One Central Quay, Glasgow, G3 8DA. Please include details of the value of the gift card or voucher. If you would like a confirmation of receipt, provide your name and postal address or email address.
•Drop-off points (see above) - The Observer office is closed for the time being and not one of the drop-off points this year, however, we are grateful to the other drop -off points accepting items.