Our hospital engagement team are leading on our school engagement activity plan. A pack has been sent out to most of our local schools asking;

• Give our patients a star this year. We are asking them to design and write a festive message on a wooden star, which will be handed out to our patients as part of their gift bundle. We will provide them with the wooden stars for their students to write on. The idea of these keep-sakes come from our patients, who loved seeing the children’s artwork on our NHS 75th Birthday bunting earlier this year.
• Christmas Jumper Day. This year Christmas Jumper Day is the 7th December and we would love for them to take part in the day, raising money for our Golden Christmas Appeal.
• Christmas Carol Concert. We are also asking if they are having a Christmas Carol concert if they could put the proceeds towards patients’ presents and staff meals across the Trust.

If you have not heard from us and would love to see your school involved please contact our hospital engagement team at fhft.fundraising@nhs.net or call 0300 615 3206.

We have already been lucky enough in securing a number of corporate engagement supporters for our Golden Christmas Appeal this year. Be that Access Group, a large local freight company close to Frimley Park, who are organising a toy run or continuing our strong partnership with Mattel who will large donation of toys for Christmas at Wexham Park.

We would love to work with more of our fantastic local companies in support of the Golden Christmas Appeal this year. Be that through fundraising, gifts in kind, volunteering or many other creative opportunities.

If you could support us in any way this year please contact Lorraine Clayton at lorraine.clayton1@nhs.net or call 0300 615 3206.

At this time of the year the hospital often receives many kind donations of Christmas gifts for our patients and staff from the local community. We’re very grateful and appreciate our community’s outpouring of support, but instead we are encouraging anyone who wishes to support us this Christmas to directly support our Golden Christmas Appeal through a donation.

Already bought a gift? If you have already bought some gifts, please do not to worry we will still accept these and distribute them accordingly but please do read our advice below.

Children’s Ward – Every year we are lucky enough to receive many gifts for our children’s ward throughout the festive period and appreciate these wonderful donations. We would ask that all gifts for the children’s ward are delivered before Friday 15 December, to give us time to sort and distribute these appropriately. Don’t forget the age group you’re donating to on the children’s ward is anywhere between a few days old to 16 years old and our teenagers are often forgotten. We ask that all presents are unwrapped or in gift bags so that we can organise the presents into the correct age groups, and we are unable to accept second-hand donations at this time.

Elderly Patients – Often our elderly patients spend time in the hospital over Christmas and sadly some of them do not have many visitors over the festive period. A small gift such as a scarf and gloves, a toiletry gift set, a jigsaw or even a blanket, are a lovely idea to cheer up our patients. Again, we ask that presents are unwrapped so that we can ensure the gifts are suitable for each patient. A good way to present the gifts for elderly patients is to wrap up a shoe box and pop the gifts inside. This means it is easy for our staff to look at each gift and it is also easier for our patients to open.

For more information you may have please call 0300 615 3206 or email fhft.fundraising@nhs.net

There is a lot to do to help get everything ready which is where we need a very large team of Christmas elves to help us. 

• All Christmas hampers will need filling, wrapping, and labelled with the ward/area.
• All Christmas present bundles will need collating with the various items, wrapped and bagged/boxed. The bag/box will need to be labelled with the ward/area.
• Distribution of all the Christmas hampers and presents to all wards/areas on eligible sites will take place on Friday 22nd December.

If you feel you could support us this year with volunteer support please reach out to Hannah Trenoweth on hannah.trenoweth@nhs.net or call 0300 615 3206.