The Amazon fulfillment centre in Peterborough has helped to makes Christmas wishes come true for thousands of children by backing Embrace’s Dear Santa 2022 appeal with a £50,000 donation.

To mark the donation, Amazon employees, their children and families were invited to a special Christmas event at the fulfilment centre in Kingston Park, Peterborough where they met Santa and his reindeers and were given the opportunity to wrap a gift for a child harmed by crime to give them a reason to smile on Christmas Day.

It is the third year that Amazon has supported our Dear Santa appeal.

 This year’s donation is Amazon’s largest contribution to date. The donation is part of Amazon’s commitment to supporting Embrace in our aims to help many more children whose lives have been torn apart by serious crime.

In 2020, the Amazon fulfilment centre donated £5,000 to Dear Santa, followed by a donation of £10,000 in 2021.

Gareth Davies, Site Leader at Amazon in Peterborough, said: “Every child deserves to have a toy to enjoy at Christmas and it’s a pleasure to team up with Dear Santa once again for this year’s festive-giving campaign. The work done by the team at Embrace as part of this campaign is humbling and inspiring and everyone at Amazon in Peterborough was keen to lend a helping hand again in 2022. Our team also enjoyed bringing their friends and families along to the wrapping event, which helped us get into the festive spirit while doing something important for children in our community.” 

Anne Campbell, chief executive of Embrace Child Victims of Crime said: “We have been absolutely blown away by the support from Amazon which will enable us to provide gifts for a record number of children this year. The wrapping events was a fantastic opportunity to get whole families involved and enable children to help other children who may not be as fortunate as themselves. It was a magical evening and one we will not forget in a hurry and the children loved seeing the reindeers and Santa on his sleigh.

“The cost of living crisis means it will be a tough Christmas for lots of families this year but we hope these gifts will show families who have suffered terrible trauma because of crime that the true spirit of Christmas is still alive and there are people out there who care and want to help them recover.”

Our annual Dear Santa appeal provides gifts of choice for children living in low income families whose lives have been torn apart by crime. It is unique because it makes children’s actual Christmas wishes come true. Each child referred to Dear Santa is asked to choose one gift up to the value of £35 that they’d really like to receive. All these gifts are added to Embrace’s website for the public to buy.

Last year, thanks to the generosity of our supporters 1,463 children and young people received at least one gift to open on Christmas Day. 

To buy a gift visit www.embracecvoc.org.uk/dear-santa-2022

If you’d rather donate to the appeal to help us buy gifts you can donate any amount here https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/DearSanta2022 

If you are a business who wants to support Dear Santa contact Emma.Fleming@embracecvoc.org.uk