Santa comes early for Nottinghamshire families

Thanks to staff at Boots, families supported by six Home-Start schemes in Nottinghamshire will be celebrating Christmas early this year.

More than 150 toys, games and baby clothing and accessories have been donated to Home-Start by Boot's head office in Nottingham in the run up to Christmas.

Home-Start is the UK's leading family support charity, its fully trained parent volunteers visit families in their own homes who are struggling to cope with their children. Many schemes also have family support groups too.
In Nottinghamshire alone, 500 Home-Start volunteers support 753 families and 1,417 children.

Louise O'Reilly, Community Affairs Manager at Boots said, "Our head office put a request out to local Boots stores for toys and games, the response was fantastic. We already have a successful relationship with Home-Start on a national level, but decided that we wanted to give something to the local community too. It is increasingly important for Boots to act in a socially responsible way and support the communities where we work."

Ruth Consterdine, Regional Consultant for Home-Start in the East Midlands arrived at Home-Start Newark on the 11^th December to deliver a pile of presents for families supported by the scheme. The five other Home-Start charities in Nottinghamshire have already picked up presents for their families which will be given out at their Christmas parties over the next week.

Home-Start scheme organisers were overjoyed by the generosity of Boots. Elaine Rosall, senior organiser at Home-Start Newark said. "This will really help to put smiles on the faces of the children that we support."

Amber Pendered (2) receives her present from Boots at Home-Start Newark

Notes to Editor

Home-Start is the UK's leading family support charity. We recruit and train volunteers to support parents with at least one child under the age of five. Our home visiting work is unique in the UK. The charity was set up in 1973 and now supports nearly 35,000 families and over 71,000 children each year. Almost 16,000 volunteers visit families in their own homes - parents supporting other parents in a variety of situations including isolation, bereavement, multiple births, illness or disability.

Alliance Boots was formed through the merger between Alliance UniChem and Boots Group which was completed on 31 July 2006. It is a leading international pharmacy-led health and beauty group operating in more than 15 countries (including associates) across the world.
The Group has:

• 3,100** retail outlets
• 2,550** healthcare outlets in the UK
• Over 500 pharmacies operating in Norway, The Netherlands, Thailand, Republic of Ireland, Italy and, through an associate, in Switzerland
• More than 100,000** employees
• Market-leading own brand products

*approximate numbers **approximate numbers including associates

Contact details:

Jo McLeish, Press and PR Officer, Home-Start UK

Tel: 0870 220 6713

Email: jmcleish@home-start.org.uk

http://www.home-start.org.uk

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