Employees at Kent Science Park were encouraged to give something back this Christmas, by creating and decorating hampers for families who will be staying with Demelza over the holiday period. In order to encourage people to make the best hampers possible, the Park held a competition judged by the ultimate authority on Christmas presents – Father Christmas himself!
At the start of the competition, each team was given a box, a £5 starter donation and the age range of a person that they needed to make the hamper for. After that, they had free rein to design the most exciting hamper they could, and then fill it with age appropriate gifts. The categories were: under seven, seven to twelve, a teenage boy, a teenage girl and the parents. In total, 20 hampers were created for Demelza.
There were some extraordinarily innovative designs, with hampers created to look like snowmen, skating rinks, sleighs, Christmas trees and Santa coming down the chimney. Some of the hampers even had sections that lit up! After much deliberation, chief judge Mr Claus settled on a huge Christmas pudding design by INO Therapeutics as the overall winner.
James Speck, Site Director at Kent Science Park spoke about the competition.
“This is the second year that we’ve run this competition now, and the response both years has been absolutely incredible. We had more entries into the competition this year, and the standard of entries was outstanding, which made the job of helping Father Christmas pick a winner extremely difficult.
“On a personal note, I’m delighted that so many of our tenants got into the festive spirit to make these hampers. The work that Demelza does is vitally important and I hope that these hampers can bring some cheer to people who are going through one of the most challenging times of their lives.”
Keith Lee, Corporate Partnerships Executive at Demelza collected the hampers. He commented:
“We would like to extend a huge thank you to Father Christmas and his helpers on the Kent Science Park for creating these wonderful Christmas Hampers for us. We are always grateful to receive donations, either gifts or monetary, which we can use to help fund our vital services. I know that these gifts will help to bring some cheer this Christmas morning.”
If you are interested in making a donation to Demelza Hospice Care for Children, visit their website www.demelza.org.uk and click on the “donate” button, call 01795 845 200 or email info@demelza.org.uk. Full pictures of all hampers can be found on facebook.com/kentsciencepark.