North Glasgow charity helps local families this festive period

When plans for their traditional Christmas Fayre fell through for the second year in a row, the charity decided to reach out to their local partners to team up and provide support for local families.

Maggie MacBean Orr, Project Development Manager at the facility said: "We have always, traditionally, had a Christmas Fayre and it's the staff and the volunteers' favourite event of the whole year.

"Unfortunately, this year and last year, we have been unable to do that, which is why we are choosing to support local families in a more tangible way this year."

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Together with local primary schools and nurseries, Lambhill Stables provided food and toy vouchers to families to help finance the celebrations.

Through mutual support and existing partnerships, they hope the initiative provided support for families who were struggling during Christmas.

She added: "Last year, we did food packs and activity packs. We delivered nice food and some activities for the children, but we are delighted that we have developed this idea this year into something where people can choose what to spend the money on.

"We got referrals from local primary schools and nurseries, so this is all through our longstanding partnerships that we have had.

"They referred families and children to us for this and what we are able to do, which we are absolutely delighted about is to give each family a £100 food voucher and a £25 toy voucher per child."

The vouchers can be spent in Farm Foods and Argos, either online or in the local stores.

As a grassroots organisation, Lambhill Stables are very proud to be able to provide this service to 42 local families, including 51 children.

An important part of the charity's work was to find out what would be the best way of providing support, so they can reduce the financial stress around Christmas.

The vouchers serve a crucial purpose: people can decide what to spend them on.

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Maggie said: "It may not sound like much, but this is a lot for a small charity like us to be able to give.

"We run all our services on behalf of the community and these are the services that people are telling us that they need. So, we are very lucky to be in a position where we can respond to that need in a very real financial way.

"When we are dealing with child poverty and food poverty, we like to go for the cash first and dignity first approach. Our focus is on this and to be able to respond to local needs.

"More people have been telling us that things have been difficult this year, families that are working and families that are not working.

"Because of Covid, life in general just has been very difficult and we know that lot of people's mental well-being is challenged, so we are trying to respond to these issues that people are telling us about."

Staff and volunteers at Lambhill Stables may say that without their partners and community, they couldn't have helped families in this festive period, but it is their handprints on the vouchers that sent kids to bed with a full stomach and a big smile on Christmas day.