One sunny day in May 2021, Karen who is our chief elf announces, “let’s do a wish tree this year”. “What’s a wish tree” I ask and she goes on to explain her concept of a wish tree in more detail - we place a decorated Christmas tree in a prominent place in our village (Gotham) and further decorate it with a number of baubles shaped gift tags each with a hand-written gift idea on. Passers-by then take a bauble of their choice and buy that gift (or equivalent) for a child at Christmas. 
I had, for some time, wanted for the business to start supporting local charities so loved the idea from the outset and asked Karen, since the concept had been hers, to pick the charity and so for Christmas 2021 we were delighted to support a fabulous local charity called Tara’s Angels. 
 
Tara’s Angels is a non-profit charitable organisation set up in memory of Tara Newbold, a mum of three who sadly lost her life in 2016, she was the victim of domestic abuse. The charity was set up to raise awareness of domestic abuse and to provide support to women and children living in Nottinghamshire refuges, many of whom have fled their homes with very little in the way of possessions. 
 
I recently had the privilege of chatting to Bev, one of Tara’s aunties to find out more about the organisation. She told me that the charity provides practical support to women and children in refuges by running a series of appeals throughout the year asking for donations – the most recent being a Mother’s Day appeal and prior to that they were asking for donations for new home packs to support families moving out of refuge into homes of their own. 
 
We supported Tara’s Angels Christmas campaign by initially advertising our wish tree on our village community Facebook group, thinking that we may have to advertise it in surrounding villages depending on the response we received. I am pleased to say that we were overwhelmed by the response that we received from the residents of Gotham who kindly donated a large number of gifts for young children – they even wrapped them for us! 
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