Mission Christmas

Colleagues in Southampton have been busy helping to ensure that local children in need get a little bit of Christmas magic via the Wave 105.2FM Mission Christmas campaign.

Mission Christmas is an annual campaign run alongside the Cash for Kids charity - a nationwide charity run by the Bauer Radio charitable group - which raises millions of pounds for local children and young people who are suffering from abuse or neglect, who are disabled and have special needs or who simply need extra care or guidance.

Southampton postman, Gavin Thompson, said: ‘Last year, the Mission Christmas appeal, enabled gifts to be given to more than 35,000 children and your people, in the Wave 105.2FM catchment area alone.

‘The stories and circumstances surrounding requests and applications are often heart-breaking, from cases of children fleeing domestic abuse to eight-year-old boys having to be carers to their terminally ill parents. So to them, receiving a gift at Christmas just doesn’t happen. Every child deserves a little bit of magic on Christmas Day.

‘The team at Southampton mail centre got involved last year by accident really. Sam Tanner, the Wave charity manager, was arranging logistics for the collection of toys from Sainsbury’s. When their backer, Pickfords removals firm, was taken over, Sam realised at the last minute that her plan for three transit vans was woefully inadequate.

‘Out of the blue, she called the mail centre and was put through to me. She filled me in on the situation and asked if there was anything that we could do to help. When I said: “no problem” it caught her completely by surprise but absolutely made her day and actually brought a few tears of relief.

‘Our involvement snowballed from there. With the help of the assets team, we managed to supply 5,000 bags to put presents in and then went about arranging daily collections from the 28 Sainsbury stores across our local postcode areas. Every driver I asked to help, including colleagues at Dorset mail centre, never once failed to help and everyone agreed that it felt really good doing it.’

At their busiest point, the team were dropping 20 yorks of toys into the Wave warehouse each day. ‘They were gobsmacked by our efforts and also how cheerful we all were,’ said Gavin. ‘All in all, it was an amazing experience and just the thought of making some kids smile at Christmas made us jump at the chance of doing it all again this year.’