Wakefield Christmas Hamper Appeal 2020 hits its target to help hundreds of families in need

The Wakefield Christmas Hamper Appeal has reached its target of helping hundreds of families in need, despite the challenges caused by coronavirus restrictions.

Most of the hamper packing has now been done by the volunteers from the Rotary Club of Wakefield Chantry.

The annual initiative - sponsored by the Rotary Club and the Community Awareness Programme (CAP) in Wakefield, and supported by the Wakefield and Pontefract and Castleford Express - aims to pack large numbers of hampers for distribution to needy families across the Wakefield district.

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This year, the appeal had to be scaled back because of the pandemic and the restrictions had an effect on collection, fundraising and packing.

However, Express readers have once again stepped up to help the appeal. Over the last five weeks, CAP has been pulling together

multiple donations of loose food, completed hampers and financial contributions to try to get to at least 500 hampers.

And thanks to all of you – we have made it.

A total of almost 600 food parcels have been produced using donations from Express readers, friends and supporters of CAP and members of the rotary club. The bulk of packing took place at Camel Concrete in Kinsley thanks to rotary club member Mark Jeffries.

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These will all be distributed over the next couple of weeks, mainly by the Children First centres which will get the hampers to the individual families. St Helens Church Portobello Project, which operates out of the Portobello Community Centre, has also been involved in the distribution.

See next week’s edition for an update on the hampers going out to local families.