UBU’s Twelve Causes Of Christmas
Finding some positivity in the news this year has become an increasing challenge, but for the past few weeks, we have made it our aim to not only end this year on a positive note for ourselves, but to spread optimism around the area for better things to come in 2021!
As the vast majority of people have faced some kind of hardship this year due to the pandemic, many would not be in a position to make their usual charitable donations through no fault of their own.
So, as part of our Christmas Campaign, we wanted to try and fill this void as best we could and raise awareness for some very important causes, at a time where their support is most needed.
Based on this initial idea, we decided upon the 12 Causes of Christmas as this year’s mission, where we made it our aim to successfully support and raise awareness for 12 important causes in our local area.
With our regular vehicles for hire busy on emergency and planned works, we had to enlist the help of one of our other vehicles to complete this special mission…
This gave us the opportunity to introduce our followers to the UBU Christmas car, which was oiled and fueled ready to embark on this festive operation!
To select our chosen causes, we contacted a number of great causes in the area to see what kind of items they were looking for in the run up to Christmas!
With those who responded, we then began preparing the boxes to be delivered which included those items that the charities had requested.
These ranged from toiletries and socks to various items for Christmas food packages, which we were happy to provide to support these charities.
Before setting off however, it was our teams’ job to plan a safe route around the area and back to our depot just in time for Christmas, which was relatively straightforward given our ease of access to major road networks!
With our route all planned and Car fueled ready to go, it was time to start our Christmas mission, which we began at the wonderful Broughton House in Salford!
Here, it was great to meet Laura and deliver some of the items that they were looking for to support them over Christmas. We’re also extremely excited at the potential of us visiting here and the team at Broughton House when it is safe to do so!
For the remainder of the week, our car was pleased to visit those at Emmaus Salford, the Salford Survivor project, The Wood Street Mission, Redbank house, the Manchester Refugee Support Network and donate to the Salford foodbank!
At each stop, it was great to see everyone in such good spirits and with plenty of items to distribute during the festive period!
Whilst speaking to Jennifer at the Manchester refugee support network, it was extremely pleasing for her to mention the amount of donations that they had received and the way in which people have been so generous given the current situation.
In a world where there is so much negativity currently circulating, it was lovely to hear that people are still supporting one and other in these times.
To kick off the second week of our mission, the UBU Christmas Car was joined by the Salford Red Devils Foundation minibus, which visited Bridgewater Primary school in Little Hulton.
To hopefully encourage more healthy living, one lucky year group was gifted with some pedometers which will be used in competitions to see who completes the most exercise!
Throughout this year, there has been a large focus on the mental well-being of those facing massively reduced social contact, therefore by maintaining good levels of exercise, we hope to contribute to a healthy mind as well as body.
For our remaining days, the Merry Motor also stopped by at both Farnworth and Bowes street foodbank, then finally St Ann’s Hospice where we delivered their festive package!
With one more cause remaining, we had a very special vehicle join us for the final part of our journey…
The Forever Manchester Camper Van is usually out and about spreading joy around our community, but due to the current restrictions has had to be parked up until it can set off once again.
So, it was great for it to be able to join us on Christmas day at our depot and support all the great work that Forever Manchester do!
Our 12 Causes of Christmas has really opened our eyes to the sheer amount of charitable organisations that there are working in our area and we really hope that many of you have joined us in supporting these causes along the way!
As part of our ongoing work to have a positive impact on the communities in which we operate in, we are really looking forward to continuing our work with these Charities and other organisations in the near future!
We hope you have all had a very Merry Christmas and look forward to joining you in 2021 for one of UBU’s biggest years to date!
