Help us make Christmas merry
It is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, at least because the annual Stirling Observer Give A Gift Appeal has now been launched.
The appeal has been running since 2008, receiving and distributing donations of toys and gifts for sick, disabled, needy and disadvantaged children and young people at Christmas.
Collected at our offices in Upper Craigs and with the generous support of a host of drop-off points across the area, the gifts are distributed via a wide range of charities, large and small, with the aim of ensuring no local child goes without on Christmas morning.
Among the charities and good causes which help to distribute the gifts are Stirling Young Carers, Home-Start Stirling, Plus, Cornton Vale and Glenochil Family Hubs, Stirling Women’s Aid and Stirling Council social services, along with a number of others. This year the appeal has added two more causes to the extensive list: Forth Valley Royal Hospital’s children’s ward and families supported by Strathcarron, including the children’s bereavement service.
The appeal also aims to respond to any one-off approaches from organisations which deal with children or young people who they feel may be facing a difficult festive season.
It also exists to ease the pressure many of the charities face over the festive season and allow them to put resources they may otherwise have had to use for gifts into their other areas of good work. Observer reporter Kaiya Marjoribanks said: “The appeal is quite an undertaking for us but over the years has become something we know is much appreciated by the charities. “As the scale of the appeal has grown it would have been easy to forget just what it means but the feedback from the charities about what it means for the children and young people is extremely humbling. “What we hope to achieve each year with Give A Gift is to help these amazing charities to continue with their great work without the added worry of how they are going to be able to ensure Santa visits these youngsters. “Some of the children simply find themselves the innocent victims of their family circumstances or their environment and only have these charities and organisations to depend on. “For others the gifts are a way of letting them know they are not alone and that other people do care about their struggles and appreciate their problems.”
If you would like to organise a collection of gifts for the appeal via your business, workplace, school or group, would like to be one of our official drop off points or would simply like more information, please feel free to contact the Stirling Observer by phone on (01786) 451110 or 459417 or email news@ stirlingobserver.co.uk or kaiya. marjoribanks@trinitymirror.com.
While a number of workplaces and schools are hugely supportive of Give A Gift, individuals also answer the call in their droves, dropping gifts off at various places which kindly agree each year to be collection venues. Drop off points STIRLING: Stirling Observer office, 34 Upper Craigs; BALFRON: Balfron Library; BANNOCKBURN: Bannockburn Post Office; BRIDGE OF ALLAN: Tree House, Henderson Street; CALLANDER: Clanranald Trust, former St Kessog’s Church, Ancaster Square; DUNBLANE: Beech Tree Cafe, 2 Beech Road; Dunblane Centre, Stirling Road.