Christmas Collections - Dec 2020

Christmas Collections - Dec 2020

For many years Rotary Beckenham has taken Father Christmas and his sleigh around the residential streets of Beckenham to raise money to give to local children's charities.

This year was different! Santa and the sleigh visited families and carols and Christmas songs could still be heard, but his helpers didn't knock on any doors. Instead, people were encouraged to put money in our collecting buckets as we passed by.

These were our dates and routes around Beckenham this year and each route started at around 6.15 pm.

Mon  7th Dec  Village Way/Whitmore Road 

Tue  8th Dec  Croydon Road/Durban Road

Wed 9th Dec  Upper Elmers End Road

Thu 10th Dec  Eden Way/Monks Orchard Road

Fri   11th Dec  Langley Way/Elwill Way

Tue 15th Dec  Langley Park

The event is always exciting for the young children en route and for the first time this year, they could check Santa's progress on Sleigh Tracker, on either a mobile phone or tablet. 

This year has been a tough time for all the charities that we would normally have supported support at this time. Everyone was encouraged to give generously. For cashless donations, a QR code was printed on our flyers and Santa's helpers had card readers available. 

We did not collect in local stores this year, which meant that the total we raised would be down on 2019, but we were able to set up Santa and his Sleigh over the weekend in his usual spot inthe car park at Marks & Spencers in Beckenham.                                   

We have raised over £8,000 this year, which will be donated to various childrens' charities that we support. Thank you to all who gave so generously this year and a Merry Christmas and safe and peaceful New Year.                   

Saturday Dec 12th, Here two of our club members, President elect Brian and Rotarian Mark, are both collecting in the M&S car park with the sleigh.

Sunday Dec 13th. They were back agaoin ... President elect Brian was joined by his wife Mary and our local MP, Hon. Rotarian Bob Stewart.

Tuesday Dec17th. Christmas Bag Appeal 

Throughout this year, members of Rotary Beckenham have made donations which have now been put to good use, providing groceries for local families in need of support. 

Club members are pictured delivering 52 bags of esential food supplies to Holy Trinity Church, Beckenham. The church has had a very good response to the appeal and our contribution joined many others that were donated and now collected at the church ready for distribution.

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