The Haslemere Food Bank have launched their 2025 Christmas Gift Drive. The initiative has been running for a number of years now and is aimed at ensuring that all those who live locally can enjoy Christmas. The event itself will be held on 5 December when local families struggling financially will be invited to come and choose a gift for loved ones. 

Between now and then, the food bank are asking for the support of the local community to donate new and unwanted gifts for children, teens and adults. Gifts must be brand new and unused but gifts for all ages from toys to toiletries, from games to books and from clothing to cuddly toys are welcome. Alternatively, customers at participating stores in Haslemere can make a monetary donation. The Food Bank will then use this to buy gifts for local families.

Jo Mackay, Chair of the Haslemere Food Bank said, 'We are so grateful for the incredible support of the local community. Each and every year, they donate generously to take away the pressure of Christmas from those struggling financially. This year the event is taking place a week earlier than usual. This is intentional - to try and take away the worry that families face in the run up to Christmas, but it does put pressure on us to be able to collate enough gifts in time.'

A number of local businesses are supporting the intiative including The Sports Locker, Sass & Spirit, Past & Present and R Miles & Son. Hemingways and Oliver's coffee shops are also backing the campaign for the third year in a row. The Haslemere Bookshop have also always been a keen supporter of the Haslemere Food Bank and are getting behind it again this year too. Here, as well as donating in store, if you'd like to give the gift of reading this Christmas, you can do so online at the Haslemere Bookshop via this link. And this year, Rock'n Shards is also involved for the first time as is Curated Living.

In addition, gifts can be left at The Swan Inn and Tesco. They will collate gifts on behalf of the Food Bank ready for when they need them.

Jo Mackay said, 'We are so grateful to all the independent retailers that support the Christmas Gift Drive. All are incredibly generous, topping up the donations from customers with donations of their own. It's also super exciting to have a couple of new retailers getting behind the Food Bank Gift Drive for the first time. We are so grateful to Sandy at Rock'n Shards and to Kim at Curated Living who are supporting us this year. If there are other retailers who would like to get involved, it's not too late. Please just get in touch with us at the Food Bank and we can provide more details.'

It's amazing what these retailers do to support the Food Bank behind the scenes. Jo told us that, just a few weeks ago, Inge at Sass & Spirit donated 5 boxes of their stock to the food bank gift drive. And even more recently, Kim at Curated Living donated 3 huge boxes of items with a retail value of over £2000. It's no surprise then that Jo is urging everyone to shop locally this Christmas. 'These local businesses do so much to support the local food bank without asking for anything in return. I'd love for people to get behind them this Christmas and shop locally rather than online if they possibly can.'