Reading Family Aid celebrated another successful year (2025/26) at its AGM on 2 July.

"It has been a fantastic year for the charity, with many successful outings, some significant donations and our first-ever runners taking part in the London Marathon. We are extremely grateful for the generosity of all our supporters," reported Anna Gilbert, Chair.
 
Strong year for donations
This has been one of our strongest years for major donations. In July 2025, we received a £3,000 donation from Procter & Gamble. Long-term supporters, Enterprise Mobility surprised us not once but twice in the year, donating £2,500 in July and a further £3,500 in December. BDO, a local accountancy and business services firm, has supported us for many years by providing volunteers for Toy Week and a £2,490 donation in the year. Other donations included £1,940 from St Andrew’s Church in Caversham, two donations of £500 from anonymous donors via LocalGiving and one of our long-standing supporters, Lorraine Wheeler, donated £1,000.
 
Other highlights of the year 2025/26

• Memorable outings to Beale Park, Camp Mohawk, Bournemouth, Odds Farm Park and the Reading panto.
• A successful Toys and Teens Christmas Gift Appeal, providing gifts to over 2,600 disadvantaged children.
• Donations of Easter eggs to several local charities and Eid-al-Fitr gifts for almost 20 children.
• Stalls at Woodley Carnival, Winnersh Fete and Earley Green Fair, increased awareness of the RFA and raised more than £1,000.
• Our two dedicated London Marathon runners, George Kelleher and Conal McLean exceeded their fundraising targets, raising almost £4,500 (£3,247 in 2025/26 financial year).

 
Sue Marson, Treasurer, reported that we had another good year of fundraising with an income of over £33,500. We spent just over £37,000, mainly on toys and outings. We finished the year with a balance of over £44,000, which sets us up well to continue our activities for next year.
 
Goodbye and hello
At the AGM, we celebrated the work of four of our longest-serving committee members who have stood down this year: Jill Barker, Ruth Perkins, Val Sansom and Sallie Wall. Sue Marson handed over the role of Treasurer to Carolyn Cheney. Four new committee members have been welcomed in the year: Kathy Davis, Katie Jones, Annie Oakey and Nathan Windisch.
 
Annual Report
For more details of our activities in the financial year ending 30 April 2026, you can find our Annual Report here.

Our runners summed up their experiences of the day…

“I’m incredibly proud to have run the London Marathon and immensely grateful to Reading Family Aid for giving me the opportunity to represent them,” said Conal McLean.

“I’ll never play football at Wembley. I’ll never play cricket at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. But I’ve just run in front of a crowd bigger than both; and that’s something I’ll carry with me forever.

“And to every single person who sponsored me, your support, messages, and generosity meant the world. Thank you. 💙🏃‍♂️”

From George Kelleher:

"London. What can I really say about the greatest day of my life? It was such a wondrous occasion, and something I’m only really grasping the scale of in writing these words now.

“The event itself is utterly surreal. From the very start, onlookers cheer your name, children hold out their hands for high fives, churches and gurdwaras hand out their water and snacks. Speakers blast music constantly from makeshift stages in the upstairs windows of people’s houses along the route. From the very peaks (crossing Tower Bridge IS that good) to the ‘dig-deep’ lows (Canary Wharf IS that bad), the noise never stops, and it never stops motivating you to push beyond what you thought you were capable of.  I used to think that being a professional athlete would be the greatest job in the world. After London, and the opportunity afford to me by Reading Family Aid, I now know so.

“When you’re going round the iconic route, it’s hard to not think back to all the work you put in to even stand on that starting line in confidence. From the 5am training starts and multi-hour long runs, to realising 25km in that 42km is actually quite far, every action in this process was a brand new experience that taught me so much about my ability, my motivations, and that the mountains in our lives are there for us to conquer.

“Further back still, I thought of Reading too - my hometown is full of the people that raised me, nurtured me, and moulded me into the person who crossed that line and got that medal. Beyond my training, my carb-loading, or my gear, there was wind against my back the entire way knowing what I was doing wasn’t just for me, but for the people of my hometown as well. I hope I made you all proud.

“Finally, I want to give my thanks to Reading Family Aid. This hard-working charity that does such incredible work allowed this small boy from RG1 to achieve something he really didn’t think possible. Hopefully, the £2,000+ raised is already being put to good use - I can’t think of a better group of volunteers and causes that it could be being used for. I won’t forget the kindness, motivation and advice given to me by your team (particularly you Carolyn!). If you ever need someone to run again for you, you know where to find me."

And looking ahead to 2027
We were pleased to have won two places in the charity ballot for the event in 2026 through to 2029. Our runners learned a lot from the experience – and so have we to help make even more of a success next year. In the coming months we’ll be looking to find our two runners for the 2027 London Marathon. If you’d like to apply to run for us next year, do get in touch at info@readingfamilyaid.org 

Conversations ranged from our annual Toys and Teens Appeal to the outings we organise throughout the year for local families. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with the community, answer questions and talk about how local support makes such a meaningful difference.

We are incredibly grateful to everyone at The Fisherman’s Café for their generous donation of £306.73. Their kindness, enthusiasm and warm welcome meant a great deal to us.

Community spaces like The Fisherman’s Café show just how powerful simple acts of hospitality can be. Thank you to all involved for supporting Reading Family Aid and the families we serve.

Jill, a Parish Nurse at Reading Gateway, has been involved in the Toys and Teens Appeal for the past five years. She said: “The appeal means so much to us. It is truly amazing to see the joy it brings to children who might otherwise receive very little. Parents often express deep gratitude, saying how the support helps relieve the enormous stress of what should be a happy time. Without this appeal, many would find it unbearable not being able to provide even a small gift for their children. To be able to lift that burden and bring smiles to families is a real privilege.”

Each week of the Appeal, we are grateful to the Reading Chronicle for printing our stories and pictures, together with the list of  Donation Points

Members of the public donated at our 24 public donation points that were scattered all over the Reading area.

Berkshire Freemasons asked their members to donate to the appeal and they raised an astonishing £6,000 with which they bought gifts mainly for the older children which they brought to the hall at the start of the week. Diane Stone said, “It’s incredible what Reading Family Aid do each and every year with the contribution from Berkshire Freemasons.”

Businesses got involved and asked their employees to donate to their in-house collection.
Hewlett Packard supported our Appeal again, saying: “For the third year running, HP are proud to stand alongside Reading Family Aid in support of their Toys and Teens Appeal. The difference they make to families across Reading at Christmas is truly inspiring. Once again we are collecting toys and gifts at our End of Year Event to help ensure every child wakes up to something special on Christmas morning. We’ve seen first-hand how generous the local community can be, and we’re looking forward to another incredible year of giving back together. It’s a privilege to play a part in helping Reading Family Aid bring joy to so many families this festive season.”

Roc Search did their usual generous collection, and were there to meet our van team and help load up the van with all the gifts.

​Many schools organised collections, and we were amazed at the generosity of the school communities.

People have donated £3,813 on our GoFundMe and we received many other donations via our LocalGiving Site and even some in cash!
​
It isn't too late to donate - anything received now will go towards next year's Appeal or to one of our Outings in 2026. Donate to the GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Readingfamilyaidtoysandteens2025

​We did go shopping too and purchased vouchers for the teenagers and gifts for teenagers, as well as sensory toys for children on the autistic spectrum. Smyths Toys kindly gave us a generous discount on items purchased from them.

We worked with schools, places of worship, social workers, health visitors and other charities in the area to identify families that met our criteria. These families will receive a sackful of gifts for their children.
​
As Laura, our Appeal Manager said: "While our motto is 'Putting smiles on children's faces', our charity is Reading Family Aid and we do help the whole family. It takes a huge weight from the parents' shoulders and allows them the joy of being able to give their children some gifts on Christmas morning.". 
In a previous year one little person told her parish nurse, "I woke on Christmas day and Father Christmas came. I got presents in a sack which I knew came from Father Christmas, as my mummy had told me she couldn’t get us any this year.”

On Saturday December 6th, our volunteer Van Men and Women collected three vans generously donated by Caversham Vehicle Hire and started the process of collecting tables donated from various church halls and organisations including 89th Scouts Group, St Anne's Church in Caversham, St Barnabas Church in Emmer Green, Caversham Hall and St Luke's Church in Reading. During the week they, with the help of various committee members and our Supporter Jan, went to all the Donation Points around town, plus various businesses, places of worship, and schools.  They also delivered the packed sacks and between the collections and deliveries drove for about 500 miles around Reading! This year, for the first time, we had help on the vans from Berkshire Freemasons, which made a huge difference - our thanks go out to them for this help on top of their existing toy donations.

Some of the donation points had so many donations that we had to do interim collections during the weeks leading up to the end of the Appeal. These were taken by committee members to Big Yellow Self Storage who donate a room for us.

Then the work of checking, sorting and packing up all the donations begins. This is all done with the help of an army of 105 volunteers, many from various businesses in the town, as well as individuals, some of whom have been coming for many years.

Every item is checked to make sure it is clean, complete, working, legal and if it needs batteries, all under the supervision of Sallie who has been in this role for more years than she can remember! This year was Sallie’s last year supervising the toy sorting though, as she is retiring from the Reading Family Aid Committee - we will miss her very much!

​If it passes all the tests and, if needed, has batteries included or attached, it is placed on the tables that correspond to the item's age suitability. Tens of thousands of items and every single one checked for suitability.

Then other volunteers start to pack black sacks. Each sack will contain 4-6 items for each of three children. If we have plenty of items for a particular age group, then we provide more books and stocking fillers.

The sacks are then sorted for each requesting organisation and loaded onto a van for distribution.

This year we were honoured to receive visits from Yuan Yang, MP for Earley and Woodley, and Mayor of Reading, Councillor Dr Alice Mpofu-Coles. They both took great interest in our sorting and packing process, and helped us with our publicity of the Appeal - thank you!

Huge thanks to everyone that made it possible to put smiles on 2,676 children's faces this Christmas:

• all those that donated gifts and money
• all the businesses, libraries, community centres and schools that offered to be public donation points
• all the businesses, places of worship, schools and other organisations that organised in-house collections
• all those that volunteered to help in the hall and in the vans and especially Jan who does interim collections and stored a whole van full of gifts in her house! 
• all the companies that gave some of their staff a day off to help.
• all the organisations that loaned us tables
• and lastly but by no means least, all of our main sponsors whose ongoing support makes all this possible:

Caversham Vehicle Hire, who give us free use of several of their vans for the week so we can collect all the donations and deliver the packed sacks.

Procter & Gamble, who have donated a large amount of money that we can use to buy toys, gifts and essential supplies to run the Project, and supplied volunteers to sort and pack the gifts.
​
Big Yellow Self Storage, who give us a free room so that we can store the early donations.

Trust ID, who have donated a large amount of money that we can use to buy toys, gifts and essential supplies to run the Project, and supplied volunteers to sort and pack the gifts.

The Reading Chronicle, who give us a full page each week of the Appeal where you can read our stories and get a full list of the donation points.

Enterprise Mobility, who have donated a large amount of money that we can use to buy toys, gifts and essential supplies to run the Project.

Berkshire Freemasons​, who generously donate several thousands of pounds worth of toys and gifts each year, and have helped on the vans this year.

Thanks to all of you and we'll do it all again next year!

Key Dates for 2026:

• Appeal Launch Date: Thursday 22nd October.
• ​Last day for donations: Saturday December 5th.
• Next year's Sorting and Packing Week: Sunday December 6th to Friday December 11th.

Kelvin said:  “I use any spare money left over from my state pension each week to buy toys for the children with no Christmas presents. This is the second year I’ve done this. I read the stories in the Chronicle last year and thought my spare money was doing nothing sitting in the bank - so I might as well do some good with it.”

For Kelvin, the appeal represents something bigger than just gifts under a tree. “These days everyone’s looking at how much everything costs, and a lot of people can’t afford what they need, let alone what they’d like,” he said. “The world’s a very unstable place right now, and things aren’t going to get better any time soon. Helping local people is something we can all do. It makes me feel good and worthwhile”. 

Twenty-five years ago, Reading Family Aid supported around 400 children through its annual Toy Appeal. Today, that number has risen more than sixfold, a reminder that the cost-of-living crisis continues to affect many families across Berkshire.

We are especially mindful this week of the older children - the teens. Many donors naturally think of younger ages when shopping, but teenagers aged 13-16 tell us they feel overlooked. With your help, we want to ensure they receive something meaningful too: board games, art sets, sports gear, gift vouchers or thoughtful books are just some of the items that go down well.

Here’s how you can help this week:

• Drop off a new toy or gift (or “nearly new” in excellent condition) at one of our donation points in Reading and the surrounding towns.

 

• If you can’t drop off a physical gift, please consider donating online via our GoFundMe campaign so we can purchase suitable items for ages and genders that are currently under-represented.

 

• Schools, workplaces or clubs: please consider organising a mini-collection this week, adding a donation box to the front of your premises. Reading Family Aid are happy to collect any larger donations if you are unable to reach the local collection points - you might inspire others like Kelvin to turn spare change into Christmas smiles.

• For a list of suggested items to donate visit:

https://www.readingfamilyaid.org/what-to-donate.html

We’ll continue to highlight weekly stories from donors and recipients, to show how your support makes a real difference in local lives. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far - and to those planning to get involved this week.

Together, we can ensure no child in our community wakes up without a gift this Christmas. Every donation, big or small, helps make the season brighter for local families in need.

THANK YOU 

​Our Toys and Teens Appeal 2025 is now in its second week – and the response has already been incredible. But with thousands of local children still in need, we need to keep the gift donations coming.
 
This year, the appeal aims to bring Christmas magic to more than 2,500 disadvantaged children across Reading and the surrounding areas. Volunteers are busy collecting new and nearly new toys from over 30 donation points, ready to be delivered to families before Christmas Day.
 
Wendy Howell, a long-time volunteer and former Chair of Reading Family Aid, reflected on why the appeal remains so vital after more than two decades of involvement:
 
“I have been involved with the charity for over 25 years. Originally volunteering at the Toy Appeal before joining the committee, I have been involved in outings, fundraising and been the Chair on two occasions. But the best part for me is the Toy Appeal. I have seen many changes over the years. The quality and amount of toys and games donated has increased. Our publicity has generated many people and companies donating to us both in terms of time as volunteers or financially. But by far the biggest change is that there are more children than ever out there who need our support.”
 
Wendy recalled powerful moments that have stayed with her throughout her time volunteering:
 
“On one occasion I had to deliver a sack of toys to a family who slipped through the net of our Toy Appeal. The house was quite bare and the mum broke down in tears thanking us. She had thought her children wouldn’t get any toys that year. On another occasion, a health visitor came to collect items for a teenage girl. This time I broke down as she shared the fact that the child had no bedding, was dirty and needed toiletries. All of this is why I continue to volunteer and therefore I urge you to do anything you can to help us.”
 
Twenty-five years ago, Reading Family Aid supported around 400 children through the Toy Appeal. This year, that number has risen more than sixfold – a clear sign that the need for support is greater than ever.
 
We are especially in need of gifts suitable for teenagers aged 13 and over, as this group often receives the fewest donations. Items such as toiletries, sports accessories, books, vouchers, and age-appropriate games are especially appreciated.
 
To help make a difference, you can:

• Donate new or nearly new toys and gifts at one of the 30+ donation points.
• Give to the online fundraising page, which helps us to purchase presents for age groups that receive fewer donations.
• Buy gifts from our Amazon Wishlist and have them sent directly to us.

 
For a list of what to donate visit: https://www.readingfamilyaid.org/what-to-donate.html
 
Together, we can ensure no child in our community wakes up without a gift this Christmas. Every donation, big or small, helps make the season brighter for local families in need.
 
THANK YOU