Driving home for Christmas
Sixty families in the Shotts area will have a happier Christmas time thanks to the hard work of the Salvation Army and the kindness of donors to its annualToy Drive.
Vo l u n t e e r s a t t h e c e n t r e i n Southfield Crescent were busy in the weeks leading up to December 25.
Corps officer Amy-Jo Battersby, said: “We work hard to make sure it’s an extra special Christmas for families. We start at the end of November and collect up until the week before Christmas, then start getting it ready for distribution.
“We really push it for that couple of weeks. We receive referrals from lots of different agencies including schools, health visitors, social work, and food banks. We are quite open to referrals from groups or churches.
“This year we had 60 families which is a lot of children but we had less donations. Referrals go up every year. It’s the closest we’ve come to scraping the bottom of the barrel, we literally had just enough.
“I genuinely think that everybody is struggling a bit this year. It was hard. ”
Volunteers Andrew Monaghan, Debbie Allan, Lisa Fairlie, and Jade and Marlyn Spence helped Amy-Jo prepare the gifts for distribution.
NHS Lanarkshire, Amiens Company Ar my Cadets, Paul’s Parcels, Shotts Congregational Church, Piuthars, Asda Newmains and Calderhead Erskine Church all generously donate to the annual drive.
Amy-Jo added: “We have very generous people who donate and others who give financially without them we would have been doomed. We will be back again next December so if others could keep us in mind we’d appreciate donations, as we will need even more than this year.”