Helping Eco Elves deliver Christmas

Shepley Methodist Church in rural West Yorkshire has been helping the Kirklees Eco Elves share Christmas with local families. Shepley was grateful to be able to provide a warm, festive welcome for the community without the stress of trying to run their own event.

Shepley Methodist was approached by staff from Kirklees Community Hub, along with Surestart and a local school uniform charity, to see if they could offer a warm, comfortable venue for young families to enjoy a free, fun filled day of crafts in early December.

The Eco Elves had been busy collecting, checking and gift wrapping the hundreds of toys which had been donated. The wrapped gifts were then delivered to the church where each young family could choose an age-appropriate gift.

The smaller children enjoyed crafts using left over materials and recycled them into Christmas decorations to take home.

The Revd Sue Pegg, Methodist Minister at Shepley commented, “Working in partnership with others, we were able to spread the joy of Christmas in an economically and environmentally responsible way which still offered goodies. We could have struggled to run such an event on our own but partnering with others made it possible. The event helped us discover a new, exciting and fun way for the church to engage with young families that was stress free.”

“We felt very blessed by the new friendships we made and were able to offer invitations to them to other events, particularly to the Christmas Christingle workshop the following week."

"It seemed to me that 'Jesus the Light' wasn't simply shining on the world but very much embedded in it and in some way by partnering with our lovely Eco Elves, we'd found an opportunity to let the light shine."