Christmas hampers provided for the neediest families in Bolton.
For the 3rd year in a row Stanmore Insurance brokers and dot2dot nursery insurance have had the honour of providing Christmas hampers to 10 families local to us here in Bolton with a massive food hamper each to help them celebrate Christmas as a family and not have to worry about food on Christmas day!
Each year for the last 3 we have provided Christmas hampers to the Bolton Lads and Girls club in a bid to help out local families who might not get the same luxuries over the festive period as most of us will enjoy. As a local business, employing local people and working tirelessly to achieve our goal of being Bolton’s best community insurance broker we think giving back to the community is vital.
Why do we do this?
Christmas is a great time for most of us, full of joy, laughter and love. Sadly, there are families throughout the UK who aren’t that lucky. Having to scrape by with very little to sustain them and keep them going. This time of year provides even more pressure on these families by the very nature of how we celebrate Christmas. The Bolton Lads and Girls club was set-up to give something back to the children of the Bolton area and it’s a cause we’re passionate about supporting. And we’re keen to bring a little warmth and happiness to these children at a time when they would normally miss out.
What do we put into our hampers
Below is the full list of all the food and goodies which we put into the hampers. Helen Dixon, PA to the Management team here at Stanmore mulls over what is needed and what will be the best food to add to these for hours on end before making her final choice each year. She’s been getting better and better at this each year according to Jackie Hyde, Director of Stanmore.
It’s something that takes Helen a lot of time and thinking space but she is fully aware of what a difference this can make to a family over the Christmas period who thought they would be having nothing yet again. Doing her best to provide as much as we can to make it a better time.
No of Items Item
4 Heinz Chicken Soup
4 Heinz Tomato Soup
1 Cadbury Drinking Chocolate
1 Tea Bags
1 Honey Puffs
1 Skimmed Milk (6 pack)
1 Penne Pasta
4 Carbonara Pasta Sauce
4 Tomato Pasta Sauce
4 Creamy Tomato Sauce
2 Tins New Potatoes
2 Tins Sweetcorn
2 Tins Carrots
1 Chocolate Log
1 Christmas Pudding
1 Jacobs Crackers
1 Mince Pies
1 After Eight Mints
1 Orange Matchmakers
2 Snack Assortment (Crisps)
1 Apple & Strawberry Juice
1 Orange Juice
1 Haribo Star Mix
1 Jelly Babies
1 Chocolate Orange
1 Fruitella Chews
As you might expect, having all those sweets sat in an office, it’s very hard to resist. So we make sure as soon as we can that we get the packing process underway.
The time-consuming process begins of packing the Christmas hampers.
Now this isn’t just your average packing and wrapping job. This takes time to work out how to get all that food into 2 banana boxes, kindly donated by Tesco Little Lever, closed and then wrapped 
without causing damage to the food inside. It’s a tall order but our Marketing Manager Matt found the task an exciting challenge. Even producing a photo led process document of how and where each item needed to go in case any of the team wanted to have a go.
Over the week of packing and wrapping we have realised many things. Helen is really good at organising people (telling them what to do), Matt is great at creating photo-based process documents (one means he’s good right?) and Julie Moore our Claims Manager is a dab hand at wrapping Christmas presents, so much so Matt will be bringing in his partners presents for her to wrap!
Each year the team get involved in this and each year we see the benefits it brings to the local families. There is nothing better than knowing you’ve helped someone have a better Christmas than they would have had. We love doing this for BLGC and will continue to do so. We suggest, if you can, to join in and give something this Christmas. If you want to go the whole ‘Goose’, then become a patron of this fantastic charity.