Christmas is well and truly over, but we’ve created some fantastic memories over at Docherty House – our scheme supporting those struggling with alcohol dependency, Serenity – our schemes supporting women who have been street homeless in Manchester, as well as our Housing First customers, who have also experienced homelessness.
As many of our customers in these schemes faced a Christmas alone, we called for donations of gifts from our wonderful colleagues – and they did not disappoint! Thanks to our team effort, some of our customers who may not have otherwise received a gift were given a surprise this Christmas.
As well as this, over in Serenity our team provided a hearty Christmas buffet for our customers, and some were provided with meal boxes complete with ingredients to cook their own Christmas dinner, as well as biscuits and chocolates. We’d like to say a big thank you to Manchester Christmas Relief for helping us to make this happen!
We’d also like to say a big thank you to our partners, Fareshare Greater Manchester, who do fantastic work to address food inequality and food waste in the region, and also provided our customers in some of our mother and baby schemes, Sarah Lodge and Bluebell Court with Christmas presents to open and enjoy, including ‘Santa’s workshop’ toys for young children of our customers there.
Feedback from our customers has been excellent, with one customer providing some touching words of thanks:
I would like to thank you very much for the lovely Christmas food parcel… It’s really nice to know that there is still kindness in this world… it really made my Christmas brighter and appreciated.”
Thanks to everyone who got involved, whether by donating gifts or our teams on the ground who supported the delivery of the gifts and food parcels. Another year running, this initiative demonstrates our values as more than a landlord.
