Residents at Greenacres care home in Meltham have been busy spreading some Christmas cheer by supporting two special charity projects.

Christmas gifts have been collected and wrapped by the residents at Greenacres care home, which is situated on Huddersfield Road in Meltham. The gifts will now be sent to vulnerable children in schools, hospitals and orphanages in Eastern Europe.

St. James’ Church in Meltham has been running the shoebox appeal on behalf of international aid charity, Teams4U. Residents have filled the boxes with a range of gifts, such as craft sets, notebooks and colouring pens, before wrapping them up ready for Christmas.

Greenacres’ residents, Jean Griffiths and Peter Garry went along to St. James’ Church with the care home’s activities co-ordinator, Nicola Wrigley, to donate the gifts ready for them to begin their journey overseas.

Peter said: “We have enjoyed making up the gift boxes for the children and I hope it makes them smile on Christmas day”.

Another resident, Anne Davies, has paid a visit to local charity, Meltham Wildlife Rescue, to donate some much-needed newspaper, which will be used to provide the animals with warm and comfortable bedding over the winter.

Several residents at the care home decided at a recent resident’s meeting that they would like to do more recycling, so they saved up all their newspapers for the wildlife rescue charity.

Anne said: “Recycling is really important and we should all recycle whatever we can so that things don’t go to waste. It was lovely to visit the animals at Meltham Wildlife Rescue and to see all the wonderful work the charity does to care for sick, injured and orphaned wildlife.”

Activities co-ordinator, Nicola Wrigley, said: “Teams4U and Meltham Wildlife Centre are very special charities who do some fantastic work so we were very pleased to support them both.

“St. James’ Church support the shoebox appeal every year and we always like to donate as many shoeboxes as we can and our residents really enjoy making them up and gift wrapping them.

“Meltham Wildlife Rescue is a small family run organisation that has been helping wildlife for over 20 years, and they rely on donations from the community. I knew that they were in need of newspapers, so when some of our residents said that they would like to do more recycling, we started saving them up.

“Whilst we were there, they showed us around one of the wards and we were able to meet some of the birds, including an owl and a heron, which Anne absolutely loved.

“We have now committed to saving all our newspapers for them in the future and we are planning to host a coffee morning for them to help with their fundraising.

Greenacres, operated by Ideal Carehomes, is a residential and dementia care home