Winter campaign

South Lanarkshire Council’s annual winter donation campaign has been hailed as a huge success.

It saw locals donating their unwanted clothes to help those most in need, and a total of 550 items were handed in.

Against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis, the campaign was launched and organised by the council’s Social Work staff to allow warm-hearted residents to donate much-needed items to help others through the cold months.

Councillor Margaret Walker, the chair of the council’s Social Work Resources, said:“This time of the year is always difficult for many people. But given the cost of living crisis and so many people struggling to cope with the cold weather, this campaign set out to help those in need as much as possible.

“I was delighted to see the huge response from local residents who always step up when it comes to helping those less fortunate than themselves. Their generosity will go some way to making this winter more bearable for so many families and individuals.”

Soumen Sengupta, director of Health and Social Care for South Lanarkshire, said: “With this winter being a particularly challenging winter for many people and families across our communities we hoped the campaign would go some way to helping those most in need.

“I was inspired by the commitment of staff across our services, including our Unpaid Work Service, who worked very hard to respond to the overwhelming generosity from the people of South Lanarkshire.

“And now that the donations are all in our Unpaid Work Team will make sure the clothing donated will be laundered, sorted and redistributed across South Lanarkshire to the people who need them the most.

“A big thank you goes out to all our teams but especially to you, the members of the public, who have shown once again that the people of South Lanarkshire always step up when it comes to helping other people when they need it the most.”