Bristol charities team up to create Christmas parcels for children living in poverty

• Volunteers work together to create the parcels which include food and arts and crafts supplies, as ITV News' Victoria Davies reports

Charities in Bristol have said they are teaming up to pack Christmas parcels full of food and gifts to give to children living in poverty.

Children’s Scrapstore, along with FareShare South West, Unique Voice and The Children's Kitchen are working together to create more than 1,000 parcels to distribute to families across Bristol.

Sally Jaeckle, from the Children's Scrapstore, said: "The parcels are incredibly important as the families receiving these packs are usually children on free school meals, and so we know they've been reliant on that extra meal a day.

"We know a lot of children at Christmas don't actually have much to eat, and certainly not much to play with."

Kelly Wyatt, manager at Children's Scrapstore, said as well as food, the parcels will have activity packs with materials for arts and crafts.

"We know the cost of living is really high at the moment so to be able to give families food and an activity at Christmas is really important," she said.

"It's great for the children to be able to get a mix of items like scrap material, glue and scissors - your real essentials that some families won't have," Ms Wyatt added.

The project, which is in its third year, relies on volunteers giving up their time to put the parcels together.

One volunteer helping to put together the activity packs for Children's Scrapstore said: "It's really nice to be involved in something which feels really meaningful and can make a difference to people's lives."

"For this lot, to be going out to the kids, I feel really happy about it - that I've done something and helped others," another added. The scheme is funded by the Department for Education's holiday activities and food programme, which provides additional support for families during school holidays when there are no free school meals.