Toys and Teens 2024 is complete!

The Reading Family Aid Toys and Teens Appeal has once again been a huge success with tens of thousands of toys and gifts donated to the appeal by the people of Reading and the surrounding area. This has allowed us to donate a very good selection of presents to 2,509 children living in this area who would otherwise be unlikely to receive anything on Christmas morning.  Huge thanks to everyone who got involved through donations, volunteering, being a donation point, organising a collection or in any other way.

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The appeal was launched by Reading's Mayor, Cllr Glen Dennis back in mid-October. The Mayor said "I am so pleased to be launching the incredibly important Toys and Teens Appeal this year. The appeal supports children from really poor backgrounds whose families don’t have the means to provide them with a present at Christmas. The appeal steps in and fills that gap.” He added, “People aren’t going to advertise to you that they are really struggling. They have pride. But as a Councillor, I am in contact with families who are so poor, they won’t be able to afford any presents this Christmas. Please support the appeal by donating gifts at any of the donation points in Reading. Thank you.”

One of last year's recipients said "Christmas is a hard time for me. I dread it. I feel like I can't give my children what I want to give them and what they deserve. Most people look forward to Christmas, but for me, it’s a reminder of what my children miss out on.”

Donations

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

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Staff at Mapledurham Golf and Health club with some of the donations

Members of the public donated at our 33 public donation points that were scattered all over the Reading area.

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L to R RFA Fundraising Mgr, Ruth Perkins, Berkshire Freemasons Charity Steward, Mickey Labana, RFA Chair, Wendy Howell, Gift Buyer for the Freemasons, Diane Stone, Deputy Leader of Berkshire Freemasons, Mark Heppelthwaite and in the front RFA Toys & Teens Project Mgr, Laura Windisch

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.

Roc Search with their giant collection. L to R Richard Larkin & Frank Perkins (RFA VanMen), Nathan Fenton & Conor Roughneen (Roc Search), Julie Parsons (RFA VanWoman), Trevor Doran, Luke Coggins and Yasmin Thomas (RocSearch)

Businesses got involved and asked their employees to donate to their in-house collection.

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Collection from Hewlett Packard's staff and clients at a lunch organised on behalf of Hewlett Packard by Ball Associates

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Santa accepting donations at P&G

Helping to load the donations at St. Andrews, Pangebourne

  

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Children from Leighton Park School who organised a collection

Many schools asked their pupils to bring in items that they had finished playing with that were still in very good condition.

St Andrew's Church, Caversham tea party where participants raised £1200 for RFA and donated toys.

And several churches held Toy Services or other events asking members of their congregation to bring in a gift.

People have donated £3,270 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 2025.

We did go shopping too and purchased vouchers for the teenagers and gifts for teenagers and the under 3's. Smyths Toys kindly gave us a generous discount on items purchased from them.

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The Recipients

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.
Have a look at this video put together by Nathan from Rocsearch. Ruth from RFA explains why the Appeal is so important.

As Laura, our Toy Project 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.". 
​Last 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.”

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Collecting, Sorting, Packing and Delivering

On Saturday December 7th, 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 27 Donation Points around town, 34 businesses and churches and 20 schools.  They also delivered the 1178 packed sacks and between the collections and deliveries drove for about 500 miles around Reading

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Toby (L) and Karl (R) from Big Yellow

Some of the donation points had so many donations that we had to do interim collections during the week's 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.

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The 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.

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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!
​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.

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The Mayor chooses some books for a sack with the help of RFAToys and Teens Project Mgr, Laura.

John Sykes from the John Sykes Foundation who donated £1,000 for gifts for the older children along with his daughter Annabelle who is also a trustee of the foundation and son John who packed a couple of sacks for us.

 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 additional sacks. 

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Karen Bridges, moving the packed sacks to the van for distribution.

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

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Karen Bridges, David Tann and Chris Rogers, some of this year's volunteer Van Men and Women.

Taking a Break
It is hard physical and mental work with much lifting, carrying and decision making! Everyone is sustained with drinks, cakes and biscuits and sandwiches for lunch - and a good natter!

Celia from RFA explaining everything to some of the volunteers while others take a well earned rest while eating their lunch.

The Numbers

Last year about 90% of the donations were for the 0-9 years age range and yet almost 50% of the children were in the 10-16 age range. This meant we had to do a lot of last minute shopping!
This year we had a real push on our publicity and stressed the importance of items for the older children and, together with gifts and vouchers that we had purchased with the monetary donations, we just about had sufficient.

It is interesting how the age profile of the children is changing.
In 2017 74% of the children were under 10 and 26% were 10 and over.  
While the number of children has more than doubled since 2017, this year, 53% were under 10 and 47% were 10 and over.
​In 2017 22% were in the 0-2 age range and this year only 8%. Are people not having so many children?

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And finally a Massive Thankyou!

Huge thanks to everyone that made it possible to put smiles on 2,509 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 make all this possible:

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

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

who give us a free room so that we can store the early donations

who generously donated £6,000 worth of toys and gifts this year.

who have donated a large amount of money that we can use to buy toys, gifts and essential supplies to run the Project, printed the Donation Point posters and sent some volunteers to help in the hall.

who have donated a large amount of money that we can use to buy toys, gifts and essential supplies to run the Project as well as providing volunteers in the hall.

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

Key Dates for 2025:
Appeal Launch Date: Thursday 23rd October .
​Last day for donations: Saturday December 6th.
Next year's Sorting and Packing Week: Sunday December 7th to Friday December 12th