Worsley Rotary Club is calling on the people of Salford to donate a present a day for someone less fortunate this Christmas.

The club has launched its Reverse Advent Calendar Project which supports three local charities: Incognito Manchester, Wipe Your Tears and The Launch Project.

Campaign organiser Tony Clayson said: “For the last three years we’ve run what is known as the reverse advent calendar project, and the idea is that we put a call out to the local community and ask people to put items into the calendar bag which we then distribute to the homeless and people in social isolation.”

The agenda behind to project is to add items in a bag for 12 to 20 days and donate them to the given charities.

Incognito Manchester charity, based in Swinton, takes items out on the streets of Manchester and Salford giving to homeless members of our communities. It has requested bags of items for homeless people including toiletries, gloves, hats, chocolate, sanitary products and each small bag should be labelled for a man or lady. The items need to be with the charity by December 13.

Mr Clayson said: “Incognito’s work is about supporting people on our streets who don’t have food, clothes and essentials. It’s not actually solving the homeless problem, but instead supporting the people who are unfortunate enough to be in that situation.”

Whereas, the Walkden based charity,’Wipe Your Tears’, is supporting children in families affected by cancer or domestic abuse. It has requested items for teenage boys, unwrapped but with accompanying wrapping paper and sellotape by December 16.

The Launch Project, also based in Swinton, is supplying 1,000 Christmas Meals on Christmas Day for people living in social isolation, or homeless.The charity has asked for individually wrapped small gifts to be given with each meal such as socks, gloves, chocolates and toiletries and each wrapped item should be labelled for a man or a woman. The items must be in by December 20.

Tony Clayson, membership campaign: “Rotary is typically thought of as an old person’s dining club and service group. In Worlsey we have what is called a satellite rotary group where we have younger, more active members, ranging from mid-20s to 60s.”

 

 

“At a time when we’re buying presents for ourselves, it causes us to think of others and make a conscious effort to put an item in for somebody else. It’s nice for those in our community to do something for those less fortunate than us.”

Mr Clayson collects the presents from his home: “In our charity we have about 70 bags of Christmas presents ready to donate. That’s around 500 presents, so we are pleased with that. The response that we have received has been amazing, and it has enabled rotary to do what they do best, which brings the community together for a joint project.

“At a time when we’re buying presents for ourselves, it causes us to think of others and make a conscious effort to put an item in for somebody else. It’s nice for those in our community to do something for those less fortunate than us.”

If you would like to get involved with the project then email worsleybridgewater@gmail.com or message Worsley Rotary Club on Facebook.

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