BIG hearted church-goers and volunteers used their free time to make sure hundreds of teenagers leaving the care system in Worcestershire won’t miss out on a present this Christmas.
Volunteers from the Home for Good: Worcestershire, a Christian charity dedicated to supporting fostering and adoption services across the county, filled 400 stockings that are to be sent as Christmas presents.
The caring charity’s gesture was designed to offer a boost to the newly-established Worcestershire Children’s First and show the care leavers they are loved.
Organiser Joy Pollock, head of Home for Good: Worcestershire said: “Back in June, I felt quite emotional and privileged to be allowed to attend the care leavers council gathering.
“They were a group of young people who have endured and are still enduring pain and brokenness because of things they had no control over.
“They are struggling with mental health, social skills, learning difficulties, social isolation and those sitting either side of me bore scars of self-harm and physical abuse inflicted on them.
“They were understandably cautious and suspicious of me.
“However, they represent the care leavers who are winning at life. Those who are fairing less well are tangled up in domestic abuse, teenage pregnancies, anti-social behaviour and children removed at birth,” she added.
The charities own elves packed more than 400 personalised stockings full of things they want not that they might need.
Chocolate coins, slime, smellies, Haribo, scented candles were among the items donated to the charity for the stockings which were filled at St Helen’s Church in Worcester before being donated to Worcestershire Children First.
“Our training tells us to ‘parent younger’ our looked after children. Some of these care leavers may never have experienced a stocking,” Joy added.
Churches and businesses across Worcester, Malvern, Bromsgrove and Kidderminster were among those to make a donation to support Joy’s efforts.
“I’d love for Worcestershire Children First to be blown away by our generosity but – more importantly – for our care leavers to feel valued and remembered at a challenging time of year,” she said.
