Stripey Stork are a small charity based in Surrey who Morrisons Solicitors have been long standing supporters of. Stripey Stork collect donations and re home them with local families during hardship, the work they do has been even more important in the current climate and their Santa Stork campaign is one we are a proud to be a part of. This year the Santa Stork Campaign provided gifts to 3,631 children and 1,537 parents and carers, totalling 2,116 families helped by the team.
However, this year along with most things Santa Stork was going to be a little different, and so was our involvement with the campaign as there couldn’t be the usual Giving Day where local businesses and volunteers would help wrap and distribute the presents.
When speaking with the team at Stripey Stork we realised hiring a van to deliver the gifts was a cost we could help them avoid, so we volunteered our van (sleigh) and the time of willing members of our Redhill team to deliver the gifts. Staff from our Redhill office headed out every Friday throughout November and December in festive outfits including many a Christmas jumper to deliver the gifts to those in need.
The team at Stripey Stork have managed the impossible and gathered the community spirit from individuals and businesses alike whilst thinking of thoughtful gifts for both the children and parents who have had a difficult year, providing thoughtful gifts this Christmas, donated from a variety of local business.
Donna from Stripey Stork commented
We were grateful when Morrisons got in touch and said that they would like to support Santa Stork again this year. Since the COVID-19 crisis started, more local families have begun to struggle and Stripey Stork has seen a significant increase in referrals as a result. Anticipating greater need, we scaled up and came up with a plan that would enable us to run Santa Stork in a COVID-safe way, determined that every child referred to us should have a gift to open on Christmas Day – even we didn’t anticipate that we would receive requests for over 3500 children and 1500 of their parents and carers.
Our amazing community got behind the project and we had over £80,000 of Christmas gifts to distribute. Not being able to hold our usual ‘Giving Day’ presented a challenge in getting gifts to our referral partners and Morrisons kindly offered to lend us their van and provide drivers every Friday for the duration of the project. This enabled us to deliver some of the larger referrals to our grateful partners. The Morrisons volunteer elves entered into the spirit and we saw some great Christmas jumpers and outfits! Over a period of five weeks, the Morrisons “sleigh” delivered 924 gifts to our referral partners including local schools, Surrey Children’s services, family centres and hospitals. Thank you so much to Mike and the Morrisons team for your continued support.
If you would like more information about Stripey Stork, please visit www.stripeystork.org.uk.
