We spoke to volunteer Paul to discover what will happen on the day, hear about how he got into volunteering, and discover what it was like to deliver gifts during Christmas Day lockdowns.
Tell us about Hackney Christmas Dinner.
These nationwide Christmas Dinners were set up by poet Lemn Sissay. We’ll have about 50 guests on Christmas Day who are all care leavers aged between 18 and 25. They might be from foster care, kinship care [when a child is raised by friends of the parents or another family they know, if the child’s parents aren’t able to do this], or they might be unaccompanied asylum seekers. It’s very non-denominational, and very broad − it’s just open to everyone.
There’s something about being with strangers and people that may not have anywhere else to go [at Christmas time]. It’s kind of a beautiful connection to something bigger than yourself.
Tell us how you got involved with Hackney Christmas Dinner.
During the pandemic, I started looking for more ways to be involved in things [locally]. I actually delivered prescriptions in a volunteering role I got through Volunteer Centre Hackney which gave me a taste of doing something good. Then, in 2021, I was just looking at various places that do offer things at Christmas time. As I grew up in foster care, Hackney Christmas Dinner spoke to me the most, and was something I wanted to get involved in, to sort of pay something back.
Your first Hackney Christmas Dinner was 2021 – what did you do on Christmas Day in the end that year?
In 2021 we decided to call off the dinner due to rising cases of Covid. So, in the end a group of us drove to care leavers’ houses to give them their presents. I just spent the whole of Christmas Day driving in a car with one other volunteer. At the start, the conversation [with the other volunteer] was quite formal, but we got chatting about books and got to know each other really well.
We had quite a mixture of reactions when we arrived at care leavers’ houses. There were lots of people who were still just waking up, because we were arriving at various times throughout the day. So, it was quite funny just turning up and people being like, “oh, I forgot you were coming!”
We got quite a bit of feedback as well. Even during the day, the people who were in communication with everyone, they were just so grateful that people were thinking about them and were able to offer something, even though we couldn’t have a formalised dinner. So that was a really positive response.
You also provide care leavers with quilts from an organisation called Quilts for Care Leavers.
Quilts for Care Leavers provide to all the Christmas dinners nationwide. There are people that hand-make these quilts, which is all about giving a hug.
The main point of these quilts is that people are able to choose one. So at the dinner, you know, they’re all laid out and everyone gets to choose which one speaks to them. And in 2021, based on the limited information we had because of safeguarding, we tried to tailor the quilts we chose for the individual people we were going to visit. More often than not, we got really positive reactions like, “Oh, my God, that’s like my favourite colour. That’s like the best thing ever.”
Tell us about the other gifts for the care leavers, and how you go about getting these.
I’m involved in trying to get donations this year. We normally receive around £4,000-£5,000 for gifts. We get some funding from the Gold from the Stone Foundation originally set up by Lemn Sissay to support the Christmas Dinner, but primarily we rely on the kindness and generosity of members of the public. A lot of the products we gift might be bathroom items, towels, socks, pens, books, Christmas crackers.
Then we speak to care leavers and ask them for a “wow” gift which is something they really want and is really specific to them. So we get a lot of people asking for something to do with football or boxing or something else sporty. Sometimes we’ll have to search for clothes to give people. We’ll look at stuff and check in with each other: “Is this cool? I think I know what’s cool!” Sometimes people ask for vouchers – it’s sometimes nice if people get to choose for themselves.
We have quite a few asylum seekers attending this year, so we’ve got English language learning books [to gift], and history books about where care leavers have come from as well.
We’ve got a spreadsheet of ideas and we’ve also got an online wish list which people can donate to if they’d like to.
How important is that young adults who are care leavers can experience a warm and friendly event on Christmas Day?
Speaking mostly from my own experience, I think it’s massively impactful. It’s just coming together, having great experiences, being able to give gifts and have food. It’s as simple as that. It’s just really beautiful. You realise the power of what people can do when they come together.
No one’s forcing us to put on a Christmas dinner. They’re just saying, just get on with it, let’s do it. It’s a magical thing.
It really does expand your sense of what Christmas means in a way, getting a group of strangers together and trying to have some fun together, recognising that that day is set aside for people to come together and then making that happen.
Has Paul’s story got you interested in volunteering? If so, check out December’s top roles in Hackney here.
If you’d like to donate to Hackney Christmas Dinner, buy from their wish list or donate here. You can follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and X.
Read more about the Gold from the Stone Foundation here.