Projects are Christmas parties; Christmas shop (toy bank) and Banana Toy Box Project. Registered charity number: 1185011 Our story began in December 2008 when my family and I had a long talk about Christmas and agreed that Christmas should be a time of giving. However for many families Christmas is a time of great pressure and stress as they try to create a great family Christmas with limited finances. From this talk came an idea of trying to do something local that would be family orientated, demonstrate giving, encourage people in the community to help and be affordable for all. We thus determined to run a family Christmas party in 2009, booked the main hall in the old Abbey Leisure centre and ran two parties at which around 140 children plus adults came along. Encouraged by the attendance, we continued to run parties in Selby from 2010 to 2012. and also partnered with Doncaster Refurnish (a social enterprise) to run parties in the Carcroft area of Doncaster. During this time we catered for 1200 children plus adults. From 2008 till 2013, we also raised in excess of £2300 for charity and around 20-25% of financially disadvantaged families were given tickets for the parties. After selling party tickets, we took out the hall rent and any monies remaining were given to charity. As the parties continued to grow it became impossible for us to fund it entirely on our own, and in 2013 we became a small charity called Spirit of Christmas. We have continued to expand and have added two more projects, The Christmas Toy Bank and the Banana Box Toy Project. The Christmas Toy Bank allows invited families to visit a "Christmas Toy Shop" and select a present and two books for each child they have. We provide gift wrapping as well to ensure children are surprised on Christmas day. The Banana Box Toy Project provides educational and special needs toys to families throughout the year. We work with other organisations with these two projects to ensure that we reach those most in need. As of December 2021 we have catered for 4420 children plus adults at our parties, 666 children via our Banana Box Toy Project and 800 children via our Christmas shop (toy bank)
