By Faith Macale
Buying presents and wrapping them just in time for Christmas can be stressful for some, but Hope Street Youth and Family Services might have the solution.
This year, Hope Street will be at Woodgrove Shopping Centre in Melton to help you with your gift wrapping needs in the next two weeks prior to Christmas.
All they ask is for a donation of any amount to support Hope Street’s services.
Hope Street operations manager Sue Scott said the organisation was very happy to be back again this year after not getting to do it last year.
“The idea behind that was to support Christmas shoppers who needed assistance with having their presents wrapped,” she said.
“It’s a donation of what they wanted to donate.
“It was absolutely incredible.”
In 2022, Hope Street raised about $2000 which was used to support young people.
“Christmas is quite a difficult time for a lot of young people who are isolated or don’t have connections with their families or loved ones around them,” Ms Scott said.
“It’s really great to have that additional money that we could organise activities and provide them with something small to do.
“We actually had some young people come and support the gift-wrapping too, which was fantastic.”
This year’s Christmas gift-wrap charity will be focusing on Melton’s young people.
“We prioritise our Melton program where we have a crisis refuge, and an outreach program,” Ms Scott said.
“We have a number of programs, and we have a number of young people and young families, so we use that money to support them in any way.”
Ms Scott encourages everyone to join them in the Christmas gift wrap charity in front of Kmart.
“It’s open to the person’s interpretation to give us whatever they are able to,” she said.
“There were a lot of people there that didn’t have money on them, but that didn’t stop us from wrapping their presents.
“It was about us helping them, as well.”
