AN ANNAN man is leading efforts to ensure that no child in the town wakes up without presents this Christmas.
Local mechanic John Patterson says he was stopped in his tracks upon seeing a post online urging people to be careful what they discuss over the festive season.
He said: “I saw a post on Facebook saying this Christmas before you start putting photos of your kids and their presents all over social media, think of the children that will wake up to nothing this year.”
He added that the thought of this “could bring a tear to a glass eye.”
And he is now on a mission to collect, wrap and distribute as many gifts and toys as he can for less fortunate children in and around Annan in time for Christmas.
The 35 year-old, who co-owns Patterson’s Body Repairs and Auto Finishing, kicked things off with £100 of his own money. An appeal to locals to get involved was then met with a stream of donations from community staff at Tesco, friends on Facebook and a scattering of local businesses, snowballing the fund to over £1100.
He has so far wrapped 100 selection boxes and 100 toys, which will be shared among children through local groups, schools and charities.
John said: “A lot of parents have lost their jobs with this pandemic, the self employed aren’t getting looked after as well as they should, so I thought maybe I could do something here and a lot of people would donate to this cause.
“After everything we have been through this year and if Santa didn’t go down the chimney to deliver Christmas presents to our kids, well what kind of world do we live in?”
He added: “I’d just like to thank all the local businesses and all the local people for helping.”
