The Christmas Lunch Project
Most people picture Christmas Day filled with presents, time with family and a delicious Christmas lunch with all the trimmings. But this just isn’t the reality for thousands of people across the area with many families simply going without. One local family last year were intending to cook their children frozen pizza for their Christmas lunch because that’s all they had in the house.
It’s a story repeated across the region and the Black Country based Christmas Lunch Project was set up to support local families like that. CLP is a Christian organisation that has been operating locally for six years. Every December, they supply and deliver Christmas hampers, which include a family-sized turkey with vegetables and all the trimmings, chocolates and soft drinks to families in need at Christmas.
In the last three years, requests for Christmas hampers for families in need has trebled, from 250 in 2018 to 750 in 2020.
Families are nominated to receive a Christmas hamper in a number of ways, including via Social Services, Health Visitors, Family Centres, Housing Managers and local schools, churches and community projects. The hampers themselves are packed by volunteers and delivered by a team of volunteer drivers.
The vision for the project moving forwards it to strengthen the link with local churches and community projects in order to enable churches to strengthen the links with families beyond Christmas. This year, help is wanted to make the project happen and there are a number of ways you can get involved:
1. Nominate a family.
Nominations are now being accepted for families to receive a Christmas Lunch hamper. As the Turkeys are family sized, the project focusses on ‘families’ with children who would not otherwise have a Christmas Lunch. Please email thechristmaslunchproject@gmail.com to nominate a recipient family.
2. Host a Local Distribution Hub.
Due to COVID restrictions, and in order to build a connection with local churches, the project would like to have a number of Local Distribution Hubs this year. Each hub would have an agreed number of ready-packed hampers delivered to them on the morning of the 23rd December, ready for Volunteer Drivers to come and collect for delivery in the afternoon in the local area. If your church or community group would like to become a Local Distribution Hub, please email thechristmaslunchproject@gmail.com
3. Volunteer to pack hampers.
Around 150 volunteers are needed to help pack the hampers at our central storage location. This year, help is needed to pack the hampers on 18th, 19th, 21st and 22nd December. Any amount of time that you can give will be greatly appreciated. We have a large enough area to Social distance and the packing area will be completely risk assessed to ensure it is Covid safe. You can register to help with packing by clicking here.
4. Volunteer to deliver hampers.
Volunteer drivers are also required for delivery in their local area. The time commitment would be around 2 hours max on the afternoon of 23rd December. All hampers will be need to be delivered by 6pm. You can register to help with delivery by clicking here.
5. Make a donation.
If you would like to support the work of the Christmas Lunch Project financially, you can do so by clicking here.
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