A 10-year-old boy has encouraged a community drive to help give presents to those in need across Salford and Manchester.
The charity fundraiser, Preston’s Presents, is being led by 10-year-old boy Preston who is asking for essentials such as sanitary products, warm clothes, blankets and baby wipes.
The fundraiser has been set up by Preston with the support from his mum Debrah-Marie Seale Archer and his sister, the family are creating packages that will be delivered to people in the area.
The family will be completing collections and are hoping to get as many people involved as possible – and will hoping to gather as much as possible by December 18.
To raise as much as possible Preston’s Presents have been attempting to raise the word of their campaign with a group on Facebook, handing out fliers and having Preston give a speech in front of his school.
Once the community drop offs will be provided to those in need on both December 20 and 21.
So far the family have been able to deliver essential support to many, and Preston spoke on the help so far, he said: “It’s nice, it makes me feel nice that they want to help me and help other people.”
Preston came up with the idea for this drive a few weeks ago after watching a video of someone asking a homeless woman what she wanted for Christmas.
The woman replied asking for some trousers and it made Preston extremely upset, to the point he started crying.
Debrah said: “He turned to me and said can we buy them all houses? and I said you need to think of something a bit more achievable”
Preston then came up with the idea to buy people multiple essentials in the lead up to Christmas.
Preston’s Presents has had 20 donations so far but Preston and his family are hoping for more, and will be even accepting second hand goods when it comes to clothing and blankets.
Preston is wrapping the presents, creating the boxes, writing Christmas cards and is even spending his own pocket money to put chocolates into the boxes.
His sister is also contributing making bracelets for the boxes with encouraging words such as ‘strength’ and ‘resilience’.
Preston said: “I am actually really excited to give the boxes out to people and I think more people will help out if they think about it and know more about it.”
Preston who’s favourite thing at Christmas is Pigs in Blankets and playing board games with the family, has mentioned that he is more excited to help people.
When asked why this was so important to him the 10 year old said: “So that they feel like someone cares about them and they’re not as sad on Christmas because being homeless is already hard, so knowing someone still cares is important.”
Debrah-Marie is looking forward to seeing how many people contribute towards her sons campaign and is so excited to see him finally give out the boxes he has been working so hard on.
She continued: “I am ridiculously proud of him and I’m very optimistic about the man he will become one day. If this is anything to go by about how big his heart is at 10. I think when he’s a grown adult he’s capable of achieving amazing things.”
With Christmas being a time of joy and full of festivities the initiative set up by Preston this year is a true example of the Christmas spirit – residents are invited to donate and can find out more here.
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