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City brings festive cheer to homeless children
City brings festive cheer to homeless children

Santa has brought some Christmas cheer to children and their families who are spending the festive period in temporary accommodation in Peterborough.

CKH has brought together the generosity and goodwill of organisations across the city to provide children facing Christmas without a place to call home with some festive fun and gifts. The Christmas party, held at Stanground Community Centre, saw Santa pay a visit and distribute gifts to children not only in CKH’s own temporary accommodation, but also those from across the city who have no permanent home this Christmas.

The huge involvement and generosity of 20 organisations made this event possible by donating gifts enough for all the children and parents, food for the party as well as food parcels, volunteering their time, transporting people to the party and supplying the free hire of the venue.  

Local, national and international businesses such as Castleton, Mears Group, DJ Brett Phillips, M & B Caterers, Good Time Entertainers, Toys R Us, IKEA, Tesco, Morrison, Keepmoat, Lovells, Planet Ice, AMF Bowling, and Bounce have been showing the Christmas spirit of giving to help support these families. Huge thanks to Stagecoach and Posh Carz who provided the transport. The party also received support from the fantastic Heart FM and Asda Toy Appeals, and of course, Stanground Community Association for the venue.

CKH’s Director of Supported Housing and Care, Maureen Lazaretti, said: “Christmas without a home is an unbearable thought for anyone, let alone children. Unfortunately, this is the reality facing many children and their families with almost 180 children in temporary accommodation across the city this Christmas.

“This is why we wanted to bring some festive cheer and most importantly put a smile on the faces of these children. Thanks to the generosity of so many local companies we have been able to extend the Christmas cheer from just those families in CKH to temporary accommodation to all those homeless families across the city.  A big thank you to the many businesses, charities and volunteers, particularly Maxine Wren, who helped make this party such a success.”