Hartlepool helps make Christmas special thanks to best gift appeal yet

MKM staff (left to right) Lee Dees, Neil Reed and Mick Sumpter with donated Christmas gifts.

This year’s Give A Little Gift appeal was the most successful yet. The collection by MKM Building Supplies, backed by the Hartlepool Mail, received more than 400 presents as well as cash donations, which were used to buy even more gifts.

Dozens of charities and organisations benfitted from your generosity, meaning scores of children woke on Christmas Day to a sack full of presents.

MKM staff (rear left to right) Neil Reed and Mick Sumpter with Lee Dees in front with donated Christmas gifts.

Mick Sumpter, MKM Hartlepool branch director, said: “It has been fabulous, absolutely fabulous. We are over the moon and this is certainly our best year yet. Thank you to all who donated without your support this appeal wouldn’t be possible.

“I think this is a fantastic appeal, all of us here at MKM love doing it. We really feel that we are making a difference to the lives of children in Hartlepool.

“These are tough times not just for families struggling to make ends meet, but for charities whose funding has been cut and yet whose services are needed more than ever.

“It’s heartbreaking to think that we have so many children in our town, that without readers help, may not have received anything this Christmas.”

HBC Social Care team, based at Bevan House, with Jane Plant and Mick Sumpter, MKM Building Supplies

Donations flooded in and were distributed to an number of organisations across Hartlepool that support families and young people of all ages.

Harbour refuge in Hartlepool has been one of the beneficiaries of the appeal for the last few years. They brightened up Christmas Day for youngsters in the refuge, after their families fled from domestic violence.

Other organisations who received gifts were: Belle Vue Project; Parents in Need of Support (PINS); West View Project; St Aidan’s Primary School; Stranton Academy; Bevan House; Hartlepool Carers; Families First; North East Specialist Therapeutic Service (NESTS), a therapeutic children’s home; and HBC Communty Development and Intergration.

Hartlepool Mail managing editor Gavin Foster said: “Once again the generosity of Mail readers is astonishing. Each year we launch the appeal and hope that our readers will dig deep to help those less fortunate.

“In what are still tough times, readers have dug deep to help those less fortunate and to give youngsters something special this Christmas. We applaud you all.”