The decorations are down and the New Year resolutions are in full swing but we want to take a moment to look back on the festive period with our incredible student volunteers.
In December, we ran our Christmas Volunteer Week where our members came down and got stuck into the festivities. This included making and packing hampers for primary school children and some fesive hampers for the elderly residents at Ryeview Manor.
In total our members decorated 300 reusable tote bags for local primary school children who are on the free school meal programme at three schools in High Wycombe. The winter holidays can be a tough time for some families but we wanted to make sure every child got a little something special over the holidays. Our members also volunteered to help pack the bags filled with treats and this was all possible thanks to the generous donation from The Claire Foundation.
The festivie season isn't just for the young, but also the young at heart. To spread some more joy over at Ryeview Manor eldery home, staff and students donated treats, socks, chocolates and so much more to help us to put together festive hampers decked with ribbons to be distributed to the eldery. Each resident at Ryeview Manor got a box filled with goodies from our Bucks community (with a helping hand from The Claire Foundation).
Ryeview Manor: “The gifts will lighten up our residents faces, especially those who do not have any family of their own. We are very grateful for all the hard work that has gone into making 100 Christmas hampers. A big well done to you guys, you truly have warmed so many hearts with kind gifts. We wanted to pass on some loving words from our residents who greeted you at the main entrance…"
Daphne, “I think its outstanding, it’s a just absolutely marvellous”
Beryl, “It’s such a nice gesture”
Brigitte, “I can’t believe they made 100, they are very kind people”
Ken, “it’s just lovely isn’t it?”
Our members really got in to the festivie spirit of helping others this year and that includes our very own RAG charities. Members were selling RAG Christmas cards around the University and we'd like to say a massive well done to Ciaran Bond and Tim Cunnigham from Bucks Men’s Rugby who managed to sell 30 Christmas card packs raising £100 for our RAG charities.
We would just like to say thank you to The Claire foundation for their donation and thank all of our members for helping us pack the hampers and all the hours they gave up out of their free time to volunteer over 130 hours. We are so grateful for every single BNU student who got involved in Christmas Volunteer week and we can't wait to see what opportunities you get stuck in to for the second term.