BookTrust Christmas Appeal: ‘The thought of families reading these books together on Christmas Day makes me bubble with joy’
Published on: 12 November 2024
Spring Community Hub is one of BookTrust’s partners in London. We spoke to the CEO Felicia Boshorin, about how BookTrust festive parcels support their work in addressing the root causes of child poverty.
“At Spring Community Hub in Southwark, we run a food bank, social supermarket and other forms of support, services and advice for local people who are at risk of crisis.
“For me, Christmas is the best part of the year. It brings so much fun and laughter. But it won’t be like that for a lot of the children in our community. Parents try their hardest to make sure their kids aren’t aware they’re struggling. Then comes a time like Christmas, when it’s hard to hide it.
“During one food bank session in October, a client’s daughter said: ‘Mummy, what are we going to do at Christmas?’ In her frustration, the mother said: ‘Christmas is a long way away. If we’re alive, we’ll be lucky.’”
“That broke my heart. So, we said: ‘We’re going to do Christmas hampers,’ so families can have a Christmas with presents all the trimmings. And now, we’ve partnered with BookTrust - so families are also now given books to open and read on Christmas Day.”
“We’re not about putting a plaster over the cut. We are about addressing the underlying causes of poverty and food poverty.
“We know that if they start young enough, and parents are reading to them, they will start to pick up a book on their own. A child learning to read from a young age - and enjoying it - goes a long way towards ensuring that they don’t end up in that place.That’s what BookTrust brings to what we do, and why this partnership is so beautiful.
“I can just envisage families after they’ve eaten on Christmas Day, reading the stories together out loud. I can see it first thing in the morning, when they wake up and open their presents. Maybe they’ll see this book and start reading it while mum’s making breakfast. Just the thought of that makes me bubble with joy. Thank you.”
