The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Nursery reverses calendar tradition
A nursery has turned the festive tradition of advent calendars on its head to help less well-off families.
The children at family-run Smallworld Nursery in Brechin have been taking part in a “reverse advent calendar”.
All the children were given a date in December and instead of opening a square to get chocolate, they were asked to bring in an item of food to donate to the local foodbank.
The donations are distributed to families in desperate need.
Staff originally planned to take all the items to the Brechin Community Pantry on Christmas Eve but have been making a visit every few days because there have been so many donations.
Manager Alison Reid said: “The concept came about because every year at this time we try to cover outcomes and experiences to help out some of the less fortunate in our local community.
“We feel that it is important to talk to the children about families who don’t have as much as us.
“We talk to them in simple terms, explaining that these families may feel ‘sad’ but we can help to make them ‘happy’.
“We have always done the Angel Tree in Brechin and last year the children all helped their families do jobs at home to earn a penny to put in the box to buy presents.
“This year we decided to take a different approach and, as a staff team, we felt that the reverse advent calendar was the perfect idea.”
The youngsters were excited to have taken part.
Pyper Dalgarno, 3, said: “People have not got food so they are going to eat our food. I brought pasta.”
Kyle Dickson, 4, said: “The people are going to be happy because we are giving them food.”
Iona Pirie, 3, said: “I brought in cereal for the box.
“It will make them feel better.”