Mission Christmas 21 Blog - Week two
Round up of short stories from another week at your favorite Christmas gift appeal
We spend many months planning Mission, some things are more complex than others and it literally feels like I don't stop talking about it all year but when it comes along the days fly by like minutes.
Earlier this week a lovely gentleman called Martin came to visit me, he comes every year and brought a bag full of gifts. We share lots of stories and he goes on his way, he's 73 years old. I know what it means to him to be able to visit and participate every year, same with our young fundraisers and everyone in between, it's a humbling position to be in heading up Mission Christmas and I'm grateful to every single one of you for getting involved.
Back to the Roxy
Shouted this out last week but for how precious our time is with our friends and with a tough winter ahead the opportunities may not be as rife as they are now. Book a ticket to this fab do at the O2 Academy and share some good times. Organisers are making a donation from every ticket to Mission Christmas
Volunteers
Colleagues from HSBC, CC33, Polar Windows and BNi joined us at HQ this week bagging up hundreds of sacks of toys ready for Santa on Christmas Eve and taking in numerous deliveries, here's some of the teams that came to help;
B&M
Every single B&M store across our region are collection points for Mission Christmas. It's such a great partnership as all their stores are in all the right places for high footfall and they have no end of cracking deals. Tuesday was an early start and our van was in Worksop before 7am to collect a full pallet of donations.
On Friday we went down to Meadowhall Retail Park who helped facilitate a ÂŁ1,500 donation of toys! - We picked games and gifts for our older age groups and babies which are the ones we struggle with the most. Thanks so much to Tracy and her team for sorting everything out, and to Lisa and Emily, my elves from BNi - we filled our van!
Royal Mail
As if the Royal Mail aren't busy enough this year sorting out millions of parcels and Christmas cards of their own they had me pecking their head as we were about to run out of our sacks we use to move the tens of thousands of toys and gifts we handle. Thank you so much to Simon and his team for coming to the rescue at just the right time so we could carry on the operation without interruption.
Hallam FM News
Hallam FM News are an award winning team so having them as a stakeholder is fabulous for Cash for Kids they help us tell our stories superbly. Chris Davis-Smith came and visited this week and released a feature on our volunteers speaking with one of the team from CC33 who got really emotional talking about her experience at HQ and how proud she was being able to help others.
BNi
BNi are the worlds largest business referral group and Cash for Kids won a years membership earlier this year and I have the pleasure of meeting them all weekly. Such a diverse group of businesses who all help Cash for Kids in one way or another from taking part in our Wing Walk, buying tickets to our events and auction items and helping with introductions to help us raise more money. The team joined us at HQ on Friday before their Christmas Do, it was a pleasure to host you all and thank you for all your support.
If you like networking and want to join one of our weekly meetings as a guest drop me an email and I'll let you know when the next guest slot is available; cashforkids@hallamfm.co.uk
Sheffield Wednesday
We must have brought some luck to the Owls on Tuesday night as they celebrated their Christmas Lights Switch on whilst acting as a pop-up drop off point they also bagged a last minute winner against MK Dons!
Upcoming events
Pandemic times means events are a little more sparse than they used to be so we want this years get togethers to be as memorable as ever;
My friend Chris Wall from Fireguard called me this week with some cracking news which I'll share when he visits me in a couple of weeks but meanwhile he's leading his team on a selection box collection at Rotherham United Football Club on their upcoming match against Burton Albion on December 11th. You can catch a donation point near the ticket office on match day before kick off.
Sheffield Steelers are back with their Teddy Bear Toss which generates thousands of donations within seconds of a Steelers goal! Check out their website for tickets, it's one of my favourite events and something difficult to describe, you just have to be there to see it, and don't forget your teddy! (Wrap it in a bag so it survives the journey from ice to our van..)
Take a look at this video from a previous event;
Hayley Kirk Photography
Hayley Kirk has photographed around 200 families in Christmas portraits to raise money for Mission Christmas this weekend in Waverley - turns out she didn't need a snow machine in the end! - Thank you Hayley for all you and your family put into the event and to all the families who make a donation in return of the festive pics!
Let it SNOW...
Storm Arwen wreaked havoc over the weekend. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I took our Mission van out on some collections and visited our friends across B&M stores in Barnsley, Rotherham and way out in Thorne to ensure our volunteers on Monday morning (who'll probably be travelling in with tennis rackets strapped to their feet) have plenty of toys to process so we don't get left behind. We are under tremendous pressure to help 20,000 children before Christmas and try and get those pieces of the puzzle as I call it filled each day. If we do end up with some disruption from the weather we will carry on. Thankfully Mission has several ways you can donate so whilst people may have stopped in over the weekend instead of visiting the shops, our fabulous Giving is Easy website not only takes cash donations this year but also has an embedded Amazon Wishlist so you can pick what toys you'd like to send direct to HQ.
That's it for this week. Always wonder if I've covered everything but do send in any photos from your collections and fundraising to cashforkids@hallamfm.co.uk and I'll try and include everything. We will share a large photo gallery at the end of the campaign and I post most days on Linked In including video tours of HQ so do follow me on there too.
See you next week
Missed anything? - Here's the links to the first two blogs;
Pre launch week; https://planetradio.co.uk/hallam/charity/news/mission-christmas-21-blog-pre-launch/
Launch week (last week); https://planetradio.co.uk/hallam/charity/news/mission-christmas-21-blog-launch-week/