Last Sunday, 18th of December, the first team became Santa's little helpers, as they took to the Children's ward of the Derby Royal Hospital to hand out presents and wish the young patients a happy Christmas.
An annual event, the hospital visit, has been hindered over the previous few years as a result of covid, however, following guidelines from the hospital staff and with taking precautions the first team, coaching staff and Ewie were once again allowed onto the wards to bring some festive spirit to the young patients.
The Ewe's have been handing out presents at Christmas for over 9 years now and its always a favourite with the senior team.
"It gives us the chance to spread a small amount of happiness at what must be a difficult time for these kids, being in hospital over Christmas, its such a small gesture from the team but we get so much out of it, seeing the smiles on the faces is a beautiful sight!" Said Sam Griffiths.
"As well as the kids it gives us a chance to show our appreciation to the amazing staff that work so hard, not only at Christmas, but all year round, to make sure the patients are comfortable as possible. Obviously this year with everything going on within the NHS, we felt it even more important to to let them know how we all appreciate them."
The presents that the team give out come from a number of sources, not only do the players and staff all buy, wrap and bring presents of their own to distribute our amazing sponsors always go above and beyond to support this initiative.
This year we had a huge amount of support again with presents being received from;
Lorraine McAndrew - Mac Mediation
Seamus McAndrew - McAndrews Utilities and Civil Engineering
Lesley Darby and Amanda Sissons - Hellmann Worldwide Logistics
Karen Ward - Sky Recruitment Solutions
Matt Wheatcroft - Purpose Media
Richard Brewster & Nicky Ford - Silvan Floors
Bal Dhamrait - Vedi Food
The support has been amazing and although we say this a lot, we genuinely could not do this without the support of our amazing partners, we continue to be humbled by their generosity.
We received some lovely feedback from the staff at the hospital and we would like to publicly thank them for helping us make this visit happen and thank them for the tireless work they do, we all appreciate you so much. Thank you.
"You have a great team to be proud of for sure, everybody was so lovely and kind with our patients and created such a lovely time in what has been a not very easy one for many this year.
On behalf of Chrissy and I we would like to say a huge grateful "Thank-you!"
I also gave some little gifts to parents of babies on the unit later on in the afternoon and I have never known one Mum so thankful and wanted to pass this on.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and good to have you back!" Laura Pickles.
