It's not Christmas at Forget-Me-Notts without selection boxes

We received the request of 1085 selection boxes for our first distribution and thanks to all of your support, we have successfully supplied all 1085 chocolate gifts to give out to 1085 vulnerable kids! Woohoo! It has been a very busy, yet extremely worthwhile, journey with you all and we would like to reflect on everyone’s hard work and contribution to our project.

For those of you who do not know about our Christmas appeal, every year we collect donations of selection boxes to give to social workers who then distribute the chocolate gifts to hundreds of vulnerable children across Nottingham and the East Midlands. Surprisingly, there are many local children who won’t receive a gift this Christmas due to their household situations. Thus, the purpose of this project is to gift a vulnerable child something special to remind them that they are not forgotten.

This year, we have asked the community for donations of Medium Cadbury Selection Boxes (145g) to distribute to social workers on Wednesday 23rd November.

We would like to sincerely thank everyone who stopped by our office to donate selection boxes. From these individual donations, we managed to gather roughly 626 selection boxes! We’d like to especially thank Steff and Claire for collecting and wrapping 276 selection boxes - absolutely amazing!

We would also like to thank ‘Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA)’ for donating 112 selection boxes which helped kick-start our appeal.

Members of NCHA dropping off 112 selection boxes to our office

We would also like to sincerely thank Debbie from Willoughby Primary School for collecting and wrapping 256 selection boxes for us! You are an absolute star and have been a massive help to our appeal, we are so grateful.

Debbie from Willoughby Primary School with her car loaded with 256 wrapped selection boxes!

We’d also like to thank ‘The Nottingham’ who collected and wrapped 110 selection boxes for us! Their team volunteered with us a few months ago to support our Ukraine appeal where we boxed donations of warm winter clothing and large blankets. These donations were sent to Moldova to distribute to Ukrainian and Russian refugees, alongside many vulnerable children. We are so grateful for everything they have done to support us - what a fantastic team!

We’d also like to say thank you to Bottesford Primary School in Grantham for collecting and wrapping 103 selection boxes! Despite the distance, you made time to support our cause and we really appreciate the kind gesture.

A massive thank you to Draycott who arranged a wrapping day and did an extraordinary job with wrapping 300 of our selection boxes, and collected a few of their own too! Not only that, but they also did a fabulous job collecting donations of brand new duvets and pillows for us to use on bed referrals. Before we received these donations, we were low in stock and frequently asking for donations of bedding. Thanks to their donation, we have plenty of duvets and pillows to last us a few months! We are incredibly thankful for everything Draycott does to support our cause; you were attentive to what we needed, eager to help, and we are so grateful to have such an amazing community supporting us. Well done!

Another huge thank you to the University of Nottingham Cheerleaders who wrapped 400 of our selection boxes and collected roughly 200 of their own; altogether, we managed to wrap 620 boxes! Wow! Every year, the cheerleaders reach out to us and kindly offer to wrap our unwrapped selection boxes. Without their continuous support with our Christmas appeal, we would not have the capacity or the time to wrap all of these boxes ourselves as we are a very small team. Thus, we sincerely thank you for always lending a helping hand and going above and beyond our expectations - these girls are all so lovely and it was a pleasure meeting you all.

Finally, we would like to thank everyone who financially donated towards our Christmas appeal; we’d like to especially thank Jez, from The Media Collective, who donated £530 which supplied us with 420 selection boxes! The Media Collective have helped the charity tremendously over the years, from helping us with the production of our nOOws to helping us cover our core operational and marketing costs, we are extremely grateful for their outstanding contribution to the charity. Thank you so much for believing in us and our purpose, we truly value you and everything you do to support us.

Altogether, we’ve received a grand total of £910 – wow! Because of this, we’ve been able to achieve our target goal of 1085 selection boxes for our 1st distribution, so thank you all so much! That’s 1085 vulnerable children who are guaranteed a gift this Christmas, all thanks to your kindness and gratitude. It is incredible to see so many different people within our community coming together to help our local vulnerable children; this Christmas is going to be so special for many kids who initially were not going to receive anything, they now have something to look forward to thanks to all of your help!

All of these selection boxes will be delivered to social workers on Wednesday 23rd November. However, we still have another distribution after this with a request of 2200 selection boxes! Thus, we’re still asking for donations of Medium Cadbury Selection Boxes (145g). Our next distribution is due on Wednesday 7th December - so please donate by Monday 28th December to allow us time to wrap the boxes.

Once again, thank you all so so much for all the support! Keep an eye out for any updates, we’ll keep you guys posted.