FATHER Christmas is well-known for travelling the whole world in a single night to hand out presents, but did you know that collecting all the gifts beforehand takes a lot longer?
This is the third year that Santa has been asking for help gathering non-perishable food donations for the Nourish Community Foodbank to ‘deliver Christmas’, and he will be travelling all over town in his sleigh, starting this Friday (December 9).
Every evening between 4pm and 7pm, until December 15, volunteers from the Royal Tunbridge Wells Round Table (RTWRT) will be pulling Santa’s sleigh around our (so far) snow-free streets, picking up any contributions.
Anything from chocolate coins to gravy granules to Christmas-themed ‘bag for life’ are welcome contributions.
The sound of Christmas music will warn you that the sleigh is on its way for you to come out and meet it, or you can leave your gift on the doorstep if you are not going to be in.
Unfortunately, the Round Table helpers are not as magical as Santa’s reindeer (who are resting before Christmas Eve), and they cannot get the sleigh into some narrow streets, but will wait at the end of these roads to see you.
One of the local helpers, Simon Addis, said: “The Round Table are delighted to be supporting Santa and his elves with a door-to-door food collection for Nourish.
“Nourish do an awesome job for the town and their services are needed more than ever now. We are very grateful to the incredibly generous people of Tunbridge Wells that have supported us over the last few years with their food donations.”
Nourish operations director Dawn Stanford said: “This Christmas is shaping up to be Nourish’s busiest ever. We’ve had a double whammy of a consistent drop in food donations throughout this year and increasing numbers of people needing our help.”
However, she added: “It takes a community to feed a community and Nourish is nothing without an army of supporters, such as the Round Table and the Rotary Club.
“We are so grateful for their support and passion to help people in crisis.”
Find out when Santa is coming to your street, using the guide at RTWRT.org/santa-sleigh
