by Jessica Brookes, Frontline Manager
We held an Everyone Everywhere Community Mapping event in Leicester at the end of October and afterwards we were keen to see how we could support others in our community. We thought about what we were good at, and we could see from our map that we were actually really good at meeting people and making connections.
Finding out how we could help
We thought about how we could use this skill to help out in our local area, and our local Spotted group on Facebook pointed us in the direction of giving to those in need. People were always reaching out asking for help – surely this was only going to intensify as we approached Christmas?
Donating for Christmas
We reached out to Benji, who we had worked with before, who we knew ran a charity event on Christmas Day – providing meals to those in need or those who had nowhere else to go. We asked if there was a need for a gift to go with this meal as we thought we had a solution, with all of our connections we could ask for toy or gift donations!
Getting ready
We asked Max, supported by our outreach team, if he was happy to use his exceptional IT skills to design us a poster or flyer advertising what we wanted to do. Max has real skills when it comes to putting information together in an eye catching and accessible way, and he created a wonderful poster which we displayed at some of our regularly attended venues. Max was happy with his work too, stating 'This is great and another poster created by 'MaxIntyre'.
Max also designed a smaller flyer which we went door to door delivering locally. This meant that lots of us could have an active role, as walks out in all weathers are a favourite pastime of ours – even better when we have a purpose.
Delivering the information
At Waring Close we made a real challenge of it – who could deliver their leaflets first? Lots of individuals got involved, pounding the streets and reaching out to our closest neighbours. We also posted on our local Spotted page – the one that had inspired this idea to begin with. People from our Leicester provisions got stuck in too, thoroughly enjoying delivering leaflets around their local areas and the business park that houses Leicester offices. This enabled one person to venture down to some offices they hadn’t seen before. Someone else found it really funny to post leaflets and then run!
Generous neighbours
The advertising clearly did its job as we were inundated with donations! Neighbours were calling by saying they had lived locally for years and never knew we were even here! We collected in total over 30 sacks of gifts and toys ready to pass on to “Aunt Sal’s Do Something For Someone Else” Christmas event. We just needed to organise a day of sorting and wrapping next, and thankfully our friends at Beaumont Leys Tesco were on hand to support this – donating the wrapping paper.
150 presents wrapped!
We picked a day to brave the “Big Wrap” and one Saturday got together to wrap, sing and be merry – with Christmas tunes and homemade mince pies featuring heavily in the day. In total we wrapped over 150 presents. All that was left to do was load the car with the bags of presents and set off to meet Benji to hand it all over!
It felt great to know that we'd helped people by reaching out to our neighbours.
