Imagine having to make your kids leave their home, their bedrooms, their toys and everything they own. Every year, in the UK alone, thousands of parents and an estimated 20,000 kids face this upheaval as they escape domestic abuse. The majority end up in women's refuges, without much more than the clothes on their backs.
KidsOut is a brilliant charity that tries to send a box of brand new toys to every single child that arrives in emergency accommodation. In 2020, we launched the KIDLY Family Fund to raise money for wonderful causes like theirs, but we think it’s important to give our time too. So, throughout November, we worked at KidsOut hubs in London and Luton, packing toy boxes to be distributed in refuges this Christmas.
Of course, a box of playthings can’t fix everything in a displaced kid's life, but it can help them feel a little bit normal again and give them a reason to invite other children over to play. And, really importantly, every box is special because it tells a traumatised child ‘someone cares’.
We had loads of fun building and filling the boxes up from the piles of donated goodies. Each is labelled by age and gender (though most toys are pretty gender-neutral) and contains a family game, jigsaw puzzle, craft activity, action figure or doll, books and a cuddly toy.
Every donated box of toys is special because it tells a traumatised child ‘someone cares’.
Being Team KIDLY, we actually got quite competitive between our Luton and London squads and set ourselves a target of 800 to pack, seal and load into trucks across three days. And.....we smashed it! As we put the last few boxes in the distribution van, you couldn’t help but wonder who they were going to, and hope that they’d bring a bit of joy to a small person at Christmas.
And the festive fun doesn’t stop there. To continue our drive to make sure this Christmas is a special one for every family in the UK, we’re also raising money for the KIDLY Family Fund throughout Give Back Friday week. So look out for our Give Back Friday deals and, when you shop our great offers, you’ll be playing Santa for a family that really needs a helping hand this year.
Doesn't that give you a bear hug sort of feeling? Does us!
Find out more about KidsOut, and how you could donate time, toys or money to them.