Charles Dickens wrote in his book A Christmas Carol during the autumn of 1843: “It is at Christmas time that want is most keenly felt, and abundance rejoices.”
Yet almost two centuries later, those words are, sadly, still true. It is exactly for this reasons that members of Stanborough Park Seventh-day Adventist Church in Garston have been donating toys every Christmas for over 60 years so that impoverished local families can still provide gifts for their children, enabling them to have the same sort of Christmas experience that their school friends enjoy.
For these families, Christmas presents a challenge. Staff at local children’s centres, social workers and support staff are grateful for the toys that they obtain from the church each Christmas, as are the parents who receive them. Other recipients are nominated by MIND and receive an adult’s pack of suitable goodies.
The annual church service where the toys are displayed at the front of the church was started around 1962 by the late Alf Kelly, who was awarded an MBE for services to the people of Watford just before he died. A big-hearted man, he was concerned that some local families were unable to provide gifts for their children at Christmas and set about encouraging members to donate new toys which he would distribute himself to needy families. These days, the event is masterminded by his daughter, Pat Walton, who is well-known to the local social services for her welfare work.
The event is attended by Elected Mayor of Watford Peter Taylor, who gratefully accepts the toys on behalf of local families and expresses appreciation for how the church meets their needs throughout the year. Social and support workers attend the service and afterwards are able to choose toys for their clients from the display. Some are regular attendees, including the chair of the local refugees’ association who always brings a ‘shopping list’ of recipients for whom he is searching for something appropriate. He says he is always amazed by the church’s generosity.
Those responsible for arranging the toys claimed that there were even more toys donated than last year – each year seems to see more – which means that there will be many local families who will be able to give their children a better Christmas than they had expected.
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