Local Community Spread Christmas Joy Through Donations

YMCA Black Country Group would like to say an enormous thank you to all the organisations for their generous donations to our projects across the Black Country this Christmas. Over the last few weeks our various projects have been inundated with donations of food, gifts and money for our service users.

The latest donation was received from The Lewisham, West Bromwich who kindly donated 42 Christmas dinners for our residents living at Western Gateway, West Bromwich.

Donna Barrett, Housing manager at YMCA Western Gateway said, “We’re so grateful to The Lewisham for their kindness, their generosity will make such a difference to our residents who can now look forward to a delicious two course meal.”

YMCA hosts 96 residents at our site on Carters Green; 42 will be staying at YMCA over Christmas due to family breakdown, money troubles or having family overseas. The meals provided by The Lewisham will be an opportunity for the residents to spend the day together and enjoy some festive cheer on which could be a difficult day.

Raz, manager of The Lewisham Restaurant said, “We wanted to do something nice for the community. We didn’t do it for publicity or a shoutout; we believe it’s important to take care of each other and be kind, especially to those less fortunate. We’re delighted to be able to support YMCA with these meals and hope the residents enjoy them.”

YMCA has been fortunate to have received donations from numerous organisations in our communities from across the Black Country, including over 150 gift sets from Leslie’s Care Packages, food donations from Dudley Tesco, Diamond Buses West Midlands and Walsall Manor Hospital, West Bromwich Town BID, Elim Church and Shaw Trust Wolverhampton, gifts and toiletries from Rugeley Lions Club, Staffordshire Youth Offending team and St Jame’s Church Longdon, breakfasts from Rugeley Travelodge, plus a number of food and cash donations to The Glebe Centre in Walsall. Once again, thank you to all who have donated – these acts of kindness really do make all the difference.

If you feel inspired and are in a position to give, please consider donating via our online giving page. All money donated goes into our Moving Forward Fund which supports our residents in purchasing items which will help them move on positively when they leave YMCA, such as appliances for their new home, or clothes for a job interview.