Donna Holland from Rockinghorse, Mark and Tara from Churchill Square, Father Christmas, Nicola from Godstone Farm and members of the Play Team.
This week saw the delivery of the first batch of gifts donated by the Giving Trees in Churchill Square to the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital and luckily, we had some help from Father Christmas!
Father Christmas with his elf helper Nicola
The Giving Trees in Churchill Square are a Christmas tradition where families doing their festive shopping can buy a gift for a child spending time in hospital over Christmas, so they don’t miss out while not being at home.
The shopping centre launched this year’s campaign at the beginning of December, and they are hoping to better last year’s total of 460 gifts.
Mark Buchanan-Smith, Centre Director at Churchill Square, said: “It was really lovely being able to deliver this first batch of gifts to the hospital, especially with the help of Father Christmas.
“Seeing how generous Brighton’s shoppers have been with their donations in incredibly heart-warming, it’s wonderful to see the community come together. We’re looking forward to being able to deliver even more gifts this year, so that lots of very special children who have to be in hospital at Christmas will receive a wonderful surprise.”
Father Christmas getting some well earned refreshment
Father Christmas helped deliver the first batch of presents to the Play Team at the hospital along with his elf helper Nicola Henderson, the CEO of Godstone Farm and one of our corporate Christmas supporters.
Nicola said: “At Godstone Farm our motto is to see everything through a child’s eyes, and there’s no time more special for this than Christmas. On behalf of all the team, both two and four legged, I am delighted to support Rockinghorse in the important work they do for sick children and their families.”
Over the next couple of weeks in the run up to Christmas, we will be making more toy deliveries to the Alex and other hospitals across Sussex to help make children’s Christmas in hospital a little bit better this year.
Thanks so much to Father Christmas, his helpers Mark and Tara from Churchill Square, Nicola from Godstone Farm and the Play Team at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital.
Find out more about how you can support Rockinghorse and help children in hospital this Christmas here.
