All I want for Christmas is you!

It's our annual GoodGym trip to help Growbaby's volunteers to sort 2500 presents for children in care! Not a small task to say the least so it's all hands on deck. We arrived at 9.30am just before the van arrived with all the presents that Tanya had collected from Epsom College. We formed a long line to grab a bag of toys from the van and then went into the school to sort everything into age and gender. Rachel got stuck in emptying out the toys from the bags and boxes and everyone grabbed handfuls to sort appropriately.

Each social worker had created a pile of tags and each tag represented a child. These tags/bags needed to stay together to make it easier for the social worker to collect during the week. It sounds simple but there's lots of room for error and if any of the tags went missing then a child wouldn't received their Christmas gift. With so many volunteers it was tricky not to get distracted so we were encouraged to pair up so we could stay focused.

Sophie and Jordan had travelled all the way from Streatham to join us in this task. Sophie had come along last year and loved it so much she persuaded Jordan to join in this year too! They got stuck in straight away collecting the tags and bags and filled up them up as they went. Petra and Claire joined forces and shared their pile of tags. I joined Rosanna at first and we created a big pile of bags until she had to leave and then I teamed up with Irfan, our amazing new volunteer, and we started with a different set of tags. Melissa helped to sort the clothes which helped immensely as there was quite a pile! Dave turned up with his parents and our kids after they had finished their clubs so there was even more help.

Soon it was lunch time and much to our delight pizza and sushi turned up to revive the volunteers. Delicious!

After a couple of hours it became clear that some age groups were running low on gifts so Tanya and the team made a note of what was needed and the planning of an epic shopping trip started there and then. Once all the tags had been sorted, we were finished and it was time to head home. What an amazing task and it really felt like the spirit of Christmas. Well done, GoodGym! And congratulations to Tanya, Growbaby, and all the other volunteers.