Airplay Coningsby's Christmas present to the community

At Airplay Youth Club Coningsby we do lots of random 'mumbo jumbo' every week, such as pool, drawing, games, community projects and much, much more. We also have casual nights, where we just socialise with other youths.

In December 2019, we made and delivered 300 Airplay Christmas presents to the community. We delivered the gifts to military houses in our local community with our youth club leaders.

In the Christmas present bags, we had multiple items, including chocolate biscuit fridge cake, chocolate and sprinkle dipped marshmallows and salted caramel fudge.

All the items were evenly distributed and they were handmade by us.

We also included candy cane body scrub and information about Airplay. I think that us making all the items by hand gave the gift a more sentimental thought. We also made baubles for people to put on their tree.

We put a lot of time and effort into the gifts and the community loved them. We even made a hashtag so that the people who got a gift could share it on Facebook. The hashtag was #AirplayChristmasPresent.

We did this project because one of the Juniors (aged eight-11) asked if we could do something for the local community. The project spiralled into a massive thing.

We also did it because we felt the need to make people feel happy and appreciated at a time, they might not be feeling it.

Some feedback:

"The project made me feel happy to see so many other people happy."

"I felt very good about myself because I was helping other people feel better about themselves."

"It was really generous of us to think about other people, I'm proud that we did it. Some people don't get lots for Christmas like us."

"The people we handed the gifts to were so surprised by our kindness."

"Delivering them to OCBSW and the Padre on Camp felt special because there weren’t many of us, but it was dark, cold and windy."

"They were really good but NEVER eat the body scrub!"

Written by the Seniors group with quotes from the Juniors - no adults were involved in the making of this blog!