Festive magic was in the air last night as Father Christmas visited Bidston Rise and the North End. The Core Project based in Clover Drive, Birkenhead, managed to arrange for the real Santa to come and deliver presents to the local kids.
The kids had obviously got some insider information, as when birkenhead.news arrived, they were excitedly standing by their front gates waiting for the big man in red to come. One little girl told our reporter that she’d been very good all year and was looking forward to seeing Santa.
As an adult, you lose the innocent fairytale appeal of Christmas that was present when you were a youngster. It was a joy to see just how happy and excited the kids were when Santa walked down their street and how polite and thankful they were when they received their presents.
Dee Frazer from the Core Project told us that they had 430 presents for Santa to give away to kids aged 2 to 14 from over 300 local families. This is the second year that Santa has helped the Core Project; last year they held a ‘Breakfast with Santa’ event, but this year they decided to try something different.
The presents were paid for by grants and through fundraising raffles. Little elves from Magenta Living and #TeamBeb from Merseyside Police helped Santa give out the presents.
The Core Project will be keeping busy over the holiday period and Dee told us, “On Christmas Eve, we’ll be in the community centre on Clover Drive and we’ll be handing out 340 full Christmas meal hampers, Turkey with all the trimmings, deserts, everything! We’re also providing 240 meal hampers for children who are on free school meals, but during the two week Christmas holiday will not be getting those meals.”
A TV crew from BBC local news were filming the event for their Christmas special due to be broadcast on 22 December.
