Last week saw the exciting culmination of our Christmas Hamper project at Queenswood. After gratefully receiving a bounty of Christmas gifts from our Q families and staff, Reverend Vindra, Miss Yaffe and her Duke of Edinburgh volunteers assembled the hampers before they were delivered to our friends in the community on Friday. 

Reverend Vindra shares the story:

"After what has been a very difficult year for many people, I wanted to make Christmas special for those who may be feeling as if no one cared and could not see the way forward. The Q community had given so generously at Harvest and so I thought that if I asked each year group to bring in one special item, it would hopefully not be too onerous.

Our Duke of Edinburgh girls had not as many opportunities to volunteer as they would have in normal circumstances,  so we enlisted their help and they were brilliant. Donated items were brought in and stored in the chapel and put together over two evenings, with carols playing in the background and well-earned chocolates enjoyed afterwards!

In the end, we were able to create fifty nine beautiful hampers with some extra tins of hot chocolate and mince pies left over as additional gifts. Fifty hampers were delivered to Howe Dell, a local primary school in Hatfield. I was introduced to Howe Dell through a a colleague, Deacon Linda Kincenton, who is a governor at the school. The hampers will be given to families where a family member has experienced redundancy and subsequently they are having a particularly difficult time.

In addition, Deacon Linda passed hampers on to three families she has connections with. Of the remaining hampers one was given to a family in Potters Bar, via our connection with St John’s Methodist Church and the rest to the Reverend Rosemary Fletcher - Superintendent of the St Albans and Welwyn Circuit. She kindly passed them to families she knew would benefit from them and to New Kent House which houses four families who have previously been homeless.

Thank you to everyone for their generosity and to all the staff who helped and indeed to our Duke of Edinburgh girls . You were amazing! Have a joyful Christmas and God’s richest blessings in 2021."