Hastings and Rother people to get 700 hampers packed with festive fare

For nearly 40 years, Surviving Christmas has provided a Christmas Day and Boxing Day meal and celebration for people at the Salvation Army hall in Hastings. But Covid-19 put paid to this much-loved event and the charity was forced to cancel for the first time in its history.

Sue Peck, chair of Surviving Christmas, said: “This is the first time and, we hope, the last, we have had to cancel the two-day event. We looked at it from every angle, and there was just no way we could do it safely, for guests and volunteers alike.” The charity has instead donated to other local charities which help the vulnerable on Christmas Day.

But despite this setback, once again a team of dedicated volunteers under the leadership of Surviving Christmas secretary Judith Cooper have spent the last week at the Salvation Army Hall busily putting together hundreds of hampers to distribute to the vulnerable. And this is no mean feat with stringent social distancing measures limiting the number of volunteers who can help out.

Trustee Megan Skinner said: “We compile a distribution list in October and November and when we know the number, we start the hampers.

“Sometimes they go to single parents, people with physical health issues, people who are alone and have no one. Anyone who is nominated we are happy to provide for.

“We do not have criteria, we just ask the local services to nominate and we will make it for them.”

The hampers contain enough food to feed a family of four for four days and contain essential items such as pasta, tinned vegetables and tea, plus some special Christmas treats, such as chocolates.

The aim is to have all the hampers distributed by the middle of next week, although sometimes hampers are delivered closer to the big day in emergency cases.

It costs the charity in the region of £30,000 to bring this annual dose of Christmas cheer to the vulnerable.

But due to Covid-19, Surviving Christmas has not been able to hold any fundraising events since March. This includes the charity’s annual auction and supermarket collections which usually bring in a large sum of money. Megan joked: “We are working on thin air!”

She added: “We applied for as many grants as we could get our hands on and we had a Crowdfunder, which is still going. It’s nowhere near what we get doing our fundraising in the year but people are being as generous as they can.”

Megan added: “We hope come the new year we can start fundraising for next year’s event and we hope it will be sensational.”

The Surviving Christmas 2020 Crowdfunder will remain open until Christmas Day. If you

would like to help the charity, please visit https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/surviving-

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