West Welcome Wagon and the Community Bank Seddon are extremely grateful for the support of the local community with the huge response to our Christmas Toy Drive. The community came together to show West Welcome Wagon families that they weren’t alone over Christmas, and due to the amazing support, they were able to give Christmas toys to approximately 700 children. Each child received 3 toys and a book, equating to approximately 2,100 toys.
Fay Salem-Demezieres, the Operations and Engagement Officer at West Welcome Wagon, reported the heart-warming response from the children and their parents who said, “We are forever thankful to your organisation. Without your help we couldn’t do this on our own.”
Fay said “We decided to do things differently this time as our previous model was labour intensive, time consuming and not cost efficient. The model we trialled this Christmas was holding three special Christmas Reach Out days and we invited all of our families to attend one. If families were not able to attend one of these Reach Out days they were given the opportunity to attend another one.”
The three Reach Out days were held at the following venues:
Saturday November 23 – The Grange Community Centre in Hoppers Crossing
Saturday December 7 – Sunshine West Community Centre in Sunshine West
Saturday December 14 – St Mary’s Primary School in Altona
The team at Community Bank Seddon were also thrilled to receive donations from local West Footscray Rotary charity Donations in Kind , who donated numerous boxes of Lego. “It’s great to see support from our local community but even better when we can bring community groups together to support one another,” said Branch Manager, Ashley Coles. “We really appreciate the support of Donations in Kind for our Christmas toy drive this year.”
Thinking about volunteering in 2025? Take a look at Donations in Kind or West Welcome Wagon