Kirkcaldy charity extends deadline for Christmas appeal donations

The Cottage Family Centre in Kirkcaldy is making steady progress with its biggest-ever Christmas appeal.
Pauline Buchan.Pauline Buchan.
Pauline Buchan.

But it is urging Langtonians to dig deep to help families in Kirkcaldy as the deadline for donations is extended.

With Christmas just around the corner the charity is appealing for cash and gifts to help it reach its target of £32,000.

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The money is needed to ensure at least 1100 local families do not go without over the festive season – after another rise in demand for the lifeline help.

The centre has now extended the deadline for donations to make sure it helps as many as it can.

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Pauline Buchan, centre manager at the Cottage has been overwhelmed with the support so far, but needs more donations to ensure that no-one goes without.

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Pauline said: “So far we have had 1198 referrals for kids and their families that need support this year.

“Originally we had said that the closing date for donations was going to be Monday.

“But we will now accept donations up until December 23 because we are short on everything.

“As well as cash, we still need gifts such as clothes and pyjamas, we are also asking if people can donate gifts that are appropriate for teens.”

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The appeal also aims to help provide basics – such as power.

Added Pauline: “A quarter of our referrals will need help with gas and electricity as well, so these families can have power over the holidays.

“From now until the 23rd we are going to have to really go for it.”

A number of businesses from the Kingdom and Edinburgh including the TSB group, RBS, the Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Bank and KPMG an accounting firm have volunteered their services to help organise the food and gift parcels.

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Other companies will be helping to deliver them on the big day.

They include the Purvis group, Briggs Marine, Fife Council Building services, CMS, Rayburn Construction and the Bell Group all chipping in and doing their bit to help families in Kirkcaldy.

Pauline emphasises the importance of getting enough donations in, incase there is an excess of crisis referrals in the remaining days of the appeal.

She said: “We have crisis referrals coming in every single day from the social work department.

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“We need as many donations that we can get as possible to cover any extra families that need help.

“I don’t want to be in a position where we are unable to help with whatever crisis that comes our way.

“Our office will remain open all the way up until the 23rd so we can deal with any problems.

“We definitely have our work cut out this year – we just have to hope that the public will continue to support us and donate more things as there is nowhere else for us to go apart from them.”

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The appeal has had a boost in cash from a generous donation from staff and contractors at Fife’s Ethylene Plant at Mossmorran who have raised £5000 for the Cottage Centre along with other gifts of toys and food.

As well as the 170 staff who work at the plant, contractors including Bilfinger – who donated £2000 – Doosan Babcock, CBRE, Wood Group, Visics and Cryogen also contributed.

Jacob McAlister, plant manager at FEP, said: “We are more than happy to be able to contribute to these very worthwhile causes.

“Our staff and contractors at FEP have been very generous and it’s great to see what their contributions have enabled us to give to families.”

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