We all know that Christmas is a time for spreading cheer and kindness, but it feels particularly difficult this year with the rise in cost of living. We love nothing more as an organisation than to be able to give back to our customers and communities at Christmas, and this year, our Social Impact and Engagement team have once again done an amazing job in coordinating gifts from generous colleagues and partners alike, to distribute to those in need.

Just some of the generous donations this year, for which we'd love to give a huge shout out, are from:

• Teardrops - For donating 18 full food hampers and 42 toys
• Asda Widnes - Their Community Champion for donating three huge bags of food, and sourced the boxes for the hampers.
• Tesco Widnes - Their Community Champion for donating a hug quantity of chocolate selection boxes.
• Morrisons Widnes - Their Community Champion for donating a trolley-full of food and sourcing more boxes for the hampers.
• Andy Walker from AKM Homes (partners on our Sewell Street Development - pictured) 
• ACS (a contractor partner) for donating six huge bags of toys.
• Residents from Naughton Fields and Brunswick house have also donated.
• Halton Housing colleagues who have donated a huge amount of toys, books and food.

Our colleagues have also volunteered at Teardrops, to wrap and prepare the hampers and gifts, and 15 colleagues - including Sam Scott our Group Chief Executive - have spent the last two days, driving around the borough, delivering a whopping 23 family hampers and 20 single/couple hampers to some very deserving customers!

We are extremely grateful for all donations, and we could not do this wonderful initiative year on year, without the amazing support from our partners.

Times are especially hard this year, and we therefore know these boxes will go so far and mean so much to many families in Halton, and we are expecting to impact around 100 lives with this project. We believe that no child should wake up on Christmas Day without a present to unwrap, which is why this project brings such a high and heart-warming reward. 

Thank you once again to everyone who has contributed in spreading some Christmas cheer this year.

From everyone at Halton Housing, a very Merry Christmas!