Our News

Donate your unwanted Christmas presents

11 January 2008

       
The quandary of what to do with disappointing Christmas presents is being made easy this year as we are staging an 'unwanted gifts amnesty'.
 
With an estimated 15 million unwanted presents received every Christmas*, we have teamed up with Choose2Reuse mascot, Green Santa, to urge people to donate unwanted Christmas presents to their local Sue Ryder Care shop.  

People need not be stuck with the presents they wish Santa had left in Lapland.  Rather than leave them languishing in a draw or throwing them away, people can Choose2Reuse and turn in unwanted gifts so that they can be re-homed. 

The presents can be dropped off at any of our 370 shops across the country. And, by gift-aiding your unwanted gifts, we can add 28% to the value of every donation.
 
The  ‘Unwanted Gifts Amnesty’ features a Green Santa aiming to promote the re-use message and encourage people to think about the environmental impact of throwing gifts away.

Alan Hodges, Director of Retail at Sue Ryder Care, said, “We are not encouraging people to be ungrateful but it is a fact of life that some of the gifts under the tree will be wide of the mark. The temptation is to either hide these gifts at the back of the wardrobe or throw them away whilst no one is looking.  But, these gifts can be converted into vital funds to enable us to continue to provide ‘care that liberates lives’.

Alan added, “The donation of just one hundred gifts could raise as much as £300 for the charity.  And, why not gift-aid donated items and raise an additional £84 for the charity.  Each year, the charity needs to raise £13 million in voluntary contributions – so we need as many people as possible to donate any unwanted gifts received this Christmas.”   

* According to figures released by Royal Mail.

 

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