Last week Manchester Museum temporarily opened its doors, for one day only, for ‘Stan’s Secret Santa’. Led by Karen Brackenridge, our Cultural Health and Wellbeing Assistant, along with numerous colleagues and partners, the day was a chance to gather gifts and donations for distribution by our various Greater Manchester homelessness and poverty support organisation partners.
This has been a difficult year for so many already, and with energy and food price increases, the preparations for Christmas present even more challenges for some. Therefore, we organised a Christmas Gift Appeal in partnership with Invisible Cities, to support people experiencing homelessness and poverty. With the wonderful Karen Brackenridge on the case, this was always going to be a collaborative effort:
Firstly, there’s “the hat” – hand crafted and made to measure by our Artist in Residence, Lucy Burscough.
But a giant Stanta hat is all well and good but how do you get a hat on a T-rex?
Obviously, another team effort! This time, involving John Miller (Senior Museum Technician), Robert O’Connor (Museum Technician) and Abi Stevens (Preventative Conservator).
No detail was left to chance: the gallery illuminations were designed by Work Skills students from our fabulous partners, Pinc College.
As well as the lighting, Pinc students also painted and decorated the gift-drop boxes, made by our workshop team; adding even more sparkle and magic to the gallery.
So on Tuesday 7 December we opened up our Fossils Gallery from 10am to 4.30pm and invited people to drop off donations… and have the chance to take a selfie with Stan the T.rex!
Even with strong winds and heavy rain, thanks to Storm Barra, there was still a fantastic turnout.
The day was a huge success and people were so generous.
We received the following donations:
104 selection boxes, 100 copies of Anita Sethi’s book ‘ I Belong Here’, 50 books, 34 sets of art materials, 34 bags/tubes of chocolates, 33 boxes of chocolates/biscuits/cakes, 31 games, 30 packs of toiletries, 30 pairs of gloves, 30 hats, 27 colouring/sticker/puzzle books, 26 soft toys, 23 jars of hot chocolate, 17 pairs of socks, 15 toys, 12 chocolate oranges, 10 items of stationery, 6 boxes of Christmas crackers, 4 hot water bottles, 3 scarves, 3 pyjama sets, 3 backpacks, 2 DVDS, 1 polo shirt, 1 pair of slippers, and a jar of Bovril beefy drink!
Last Friday Invisible Cities organised a day of gift-wrapping. Again, this was a team effort, and as well as helping to wrap gifts, Pinc students also provided some of their hand-made wrapping paper too.
This week Invisible Cities have allocated all of the donations to the partner organisations, who will be distributing items directly in time for Christmas. Gifts are going out to the following organisations:
Barnabus Manchester, Baubles4Beds, Bee Squad, Booth Centre, Jo Spurling, Life-share, Sanctuary Supported Housing, and Wood Street Mission
We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who braved the weather to donate gifts, to our partners Invisible Cities, to Pinc College students and staff, and to all of our museum colleagues for supporting this fantastic gift appeal. Merry Christmas!
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