Salford’s Santa binmen collect 2,000 Christmas presents for needy families

A Salford binman has described how he and his fellow refuse collectors have gathered more than 2,000 gifts as part of a Christmas campaign to help people in need.

Salford Now reported how the city’s binmen asked the public to leave gifts beside their bins on bin collection days. Now they are celebrating the success of the appeal.

The refuse collectors themselves visit 110,000 properties in Salford throughout the week it made sense to have the collections brought from the doorsteps. For 37-year-old binman Sam Barry, this made his fellow refuse collectors at Salford City Council the perfect people to help spread Christmas cheer throughout the city.

It’s been a great day of playing #SalfordSanta ?? We’ve collected lots of presents for children who’d otherwise go without this Christmas. Please keep donating, it’s for a fantastic cause https://t.co/QRDJdsSsvf #Santaappeal pic.twitter.com/iKfeJc4Otj

— Salford City Council (@SalfordCouncil) 4 December 2018

Mr Barry felt it was important to provide help to many families in the area, especially young and single parent families.

‘In this day and age parents are ashamed to ask for help, if someone needs help they shouldn’t be afraid to ask, look at all the people I’ve asked for help.’

He contacted numerous local charities like wood street mission and Women’s aid, as well as many domestic abuse charities, asking them to help with his appeal.

This is not the first time Mr Barry has fundraised or helped charity, as a former solider he has fundraised for various veteran’s charities including doing a 15 mile ‘Tough Mudder’, an obstacle course on harsh terrain.

Despite his activism, Mr Barry told us that he feels ‘charity will always be needed.’

‘To throw out my personal opinion, I don’t think charity work should have to be done.’

Mr Barry would like to see more done by the general public and government to end the need for charity work, and enable everyone to have a Merry Christmas.

The last collection was on Friday 7th December, with the 2,000 gifts being collected within four days. The gifts have been donated to a variety of charities and will provide children in struggling families with age appropriate gifts.