St Mark's has for the last few years supported the Every Child Needs Christmas (ECNC) please see below information from ECNC.

ECNC has run for 6 years. This will be our 7th year. Each year reaching more and more children who receive gifts – YOUR gifts. We started with a simple idea, over a cuppa and a mince pie, in a friends' kitchen – as we sat and gossiped about Christmas and the gifts we would purchase for our own children. A wave of guilt swept over us – as the words: “ but do we have enough for them….” spilled out and quickly followed with - how lucky we are we can and actually, how many children are out there right on our doorsteps who get little, or nothing. A couple of phone calls later and Every Child Needs Christmas was born. Back then, in 2 weeks, on my dining room table, we collected and distributed 700 gifts. This number doubled and then again and at it’s peak we reached 15,000. Last year we achieved 10 van loads & routes and 12,200 brand new gifts sent out into the community and it was, once again, as it is EVERY year, a truly remarkable time.

Our ethos is to get a Christmas gift out to ANY child that may not otherwise receive one. For a variety of circumstances. We work with lots of organisaitons, charities, places of worship, local council, social care teams etc who refer age and gender of identified children to us for fulfilment by the gifts we collect – that YOU donate. We send generic gifts to foodbanks and we operate all over BS postcodes. This mostly covers WSM, Bristol, Clevedon, Portishead, South Gloucestershire, Keynsham.

We ask for donations of NEW AND SEALED, NON-EDIBLE gifts for ages 0-16 around the £5-£7 mark. These can be purchased from anywhere.