Secret Santa are a Community Interest Company (CIC) Reg No.10858839
Thank you for stopping by and spending a few minutes discovering what we do for our most
disadvantaged children. We're called “Secret Santa” because it's not about us - it's about the
children.
We've had a lot of success across the last 5 years and have delivered successfully every year,
even through COVID, where we thought we would fail, we received tremendous support from our
local community and Xmas 2021 was fantastic !
We have a shop on King William Street, on the edge of Blackburn Mall, adjacent to the glass
clock tower (pictured above). This is WHOLLY due to the kindness and support of the team that
own and manage Blackburn Mall who provide us with the shop rent-free.
Secret Santa was born in August of 2017 by Phil and Karen Boulding, working from their home in
Lower Darwen with an original goal of delivering 200 sacks to Childrens Services for them, to
then deliver our red Santa Sacks to the MOST disadvantaged children in the area.
Later that year, due to demand the goal grew to 800, the following year was 905 and sadly the
demand has since grown to more than 1,000. The good news is that for each of the last 4 years we
have delivered successfully on our goal - despite the impact of COVID.
As our 6th Christmas approaches - we are launching our Xmas 2021 appeal. where again we will be
providing a sack of 7 x presents to 1,000 local disadvantaged children - to open on Christmas
day morning.
Ideally, we need to collect cash donations from people like yourself that will allow us to
purchase a quantity of age/gender specific gifts that we will make up into "Santa sacks"
containing 7 different presents (more below) that will be delivered to the parents of these
children. Cash donations allow us to fill specific gaps between what toys are donated, and the
toys that we need.
Our hope is to bring a smile and genuine cheer into the lives of those less fortunate children
in Blackburn and Darwen on Christmas morning when they open their totally unexpected "Santa
Sack". (The parents will have wrapped these presents and will give them as if they had bought
the gifts, giving themselves some self-esteem and most importantly the obvious message to the
child that they ARE loved, and they ARE normal and do NOT have to go without.
Because without what we do - These children would REALLY get next to nothing at all. They are in
the bullseye of who our local Childrens services look after.
We intend providing 7 presents in each sack of gifts (Age/Gender appropriate):
A selection box - All children LOVE chocolate
Stocking filler - To help build the excitement
Reading Book(s) - To help them read, learn or even “escape”
Skipping rope, Football or Frisbee - Get them mobile
Board game/Puzzle - To play together as a family unit
Main present - Just for themselves
A teddy - For those quiet, comforting times
Collectively these gifts will help the child play, read, learn, engage with his/her
family/friends
playing games and really enjoy their own very special Christmas experience.
Each "Santa's sack" costs us approximately £25. So, for just £25 we can REALLY help a needy
child
have an amazing Christmas.
Absolutely any amount you could help us with is a massive contribution to what we hope to
achieve
and this year we are aiming to help 1,000 local children from Blackburn and Darwen.
And if you're a business and wanted as a company to donate toys - simply collect your toys, call
us and we'll pick them up and take photos to share on our social media.
Please either email (phil@secretsanta.ltd) with your
details OR, feel free to call us anytime on 07866 566166. Or
simply click the “donate” button, and we'll do the rest. - Thank
you so much.
2022's GOAL is £25,000
Anyone | Anyone | Person | Person | Company | Company | Company | Company | Anyone |
Single adhoc gift | Monthly standing order | £25/£50 one off | £75/£100+ one off | Bronze Contributor (Up to £249) | Silver Contributor (£250 to £499) | Gold Contributor (£500 to £749) | Platinum Contributor (£750+) | Diamond Contributor (£2,500+) |
Santa sack for ? | Santa sack for ? | Santa sack for 1 or 2 | Santa sack for 3 or 4 | Santa sack for up to 10 | Santa sack for up to 20 | Santa sack for up to 30 | Santa sack for 30+ | Santa sacks for a huge number of under privileged children |
We are supporting Blackburn with Darwen borough council's Childrens Services Division
and
others by
providing their 8 Childrens centres across Blackburn and Darwen and the main
headquarters for Childrens Services at Duke Street and other locations with 1,000
Santa sacks for Xmas 2022.
We are really pleased and proud to be supporting our LOCAL
children and ensuring that purely down to the kind people of Blackburn and Darwen, these
under-privileged children will have a better Christmas.
As a result of our work and your support, family support
workers and social workers will have a straight forward route through these centres in
requesting referrals for the families they work with.
The reason these families are in difficulty are wide and
complex. Secret Santa doesn't get involved directly, instead we leave the
professionals to their roles and the families to their privacy and we concentrate on
supporting the carers who will pass on our Santa Sacks just ahead of Christmas.
We also help the Elderly and Lonely - When we were
collecting, many people told us it's not just children that suffer at Christmas, but the
elderly do too. They weren't always elderly and lonely, they have memories of better
times. So we said we would also arrange a series of Christmas parties and get these
people out and together, enjoying themselves again. In 2017 we helped 100. In 2018 it
had risen to 250 across Blackburn and Darwen. In 2019, our goal was to bring 300
elderly, lonely people together. Ever since we have provided parties for 300+ elderly, lonely
people.