On Sunday 5th September, seven valiant LIHH road warriors will be slogging their trainers off to raise funds for our 2021 Christmas Craic Pack project by taking part in the Leeds Half Marathon.
During the pandemic we got together with lots of different Irish organisations in Leeds to make sure that no one from the community was left feeling alone. And one of the most popular ideas to come forward from it was bringing people 'a taste of home' in an Irish goody-bag (tea, biscuits, cake, jams etc) which also included a community newsletter, health information and resources and a little gift at Christmas and Easter time.
We delivered over 1300 packs in total.
Each pack was personally delivered by a volunteer or LIHH staff member and would give us a chance to ask how people were going on and whether they needed any extra help.
The packs went down a storm and families told us that they had helped their elderly relatives feel that they were being thought about especially at a time when many could not be with their relatives.
Here are some of the comments we received:
"Thank you so much for our very well thought out Christmas gift. There was everything in there that if you were alone you could rejoice with something to do to eat to read to indulge to keep safe and hope one day ( joy of joy if your a 'shopper' ) you will find yourself at ASDA with a unique bags. Congrats on a lovely thing to come out of 2020."
"Thank you very much for the Christmas gift you delivered to me. It was a lovely surprise and cheered me up on what was turning out to be a terrible Friday afternoon. Thank you so much again and a Happy Christmas to you all."
“Thank you for the craic pack received for Christmas. It was very thoughtful of you. A lot of my friends were delighted to receive the welcome gift. The way thing are going you might be delivering an Easter egg in April.” (And yes, we did!!)
“I would like to say a massive thank you for the bag of goodies that was delivered to my Father today. You are all doing an amazing job, which is very much appreciated”
"Well, what a surprise I got today when I opened my door. I could not believe it. I have been feeling so low and have not really been out or seen anyone, but when I saw this young man with all these goodies for me, I did not know what to say. I was so touched that you thought of me. I cannot thank you enough. It really lifted me"
"I would like to thank you all (especially EM) for the kindness shown to my mum. Her mood has been lifted by the doorstep visits, goodie bags & telephone calls. Your all wonderful & provide an amazing service - it stands out from the rest."
Ant Hanlon, Chief Executive of LIHH comments "the team at LIHH, our volunteers and sponsors all saw the wonderful benefits the Craic packs brought during the pandemic. Although the country is returning to some sort of normality we also know that there are many people, especially those who are clinically vulnerable or anxious for whom returning to pre-pandemic ways are going to be a struggle. We don't know what the situation will be like during the winter months and we could find people struggling again so we just want to be able to offer our community members a little bit of extra joy at Christmas time by delivering our Craic packs again.
Each Christmas Craic pack costs £25 which includes a present and the team are hoping to raise enough money to buy 100 packs and this being our 25th anniversary year it will be amazing if we can smash our target. Any extra funds raised will be used for more packs so don't worry that any donations will not be used. We hope to be able to deliver over 500 Christmas Craic packs this year.
I'd like to personally thank our runners for thinking of us and giving up their time in support of this brilliant project"
If you would like to donate to our appeal please do so here
For any further information on how to support LIHH or volunteer please email us or call 0113 262 5614
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