Wills Primary spreads Christmas cheer

By Anesta Henry

The students of Wills Primary School are spreading Christmas cheer with the donation of gifts and money to the less fortunate.

On Monday, the staff and students of the Maxwell, Christ Church private school, handed over the donations to representatives of the Living Water Community, the Prison Care Ministry, and the St Dominic’s Church Care Ministry, during a brief ceremony. 

One of the patrons of the Early Act Helping Hands at Wills, Shelley Welch, told Barbados TODAY that while in the past the students used to exchange Christmas gifts among themselves, it was decided that from 2021, the children would donate gifts to the less fortunate.

“Rather than just doing it through the Helping Hands, the entire school does it. Students bring in a gift for a child of their age and their gender, a girl for a girl and a boy for a boy, and we give the gifts to organisations that help those who are less fortunate. 

“There are over 250 children in the school so we end up with over 250 gifts and it warms our hearts because the children get to understand the idea of giving to others as opposed to just receiving all the time. 

“The children you are seeing here are our executives of the Early Act Helping Hands and it is partly them that would have made this possible,” Roach said.

She further explained that in addition to the gifts, two of the groups also received cheques from the school to help with their feeding programmes for underprivileged children.

“We did our house to house costume party through Graeme Hall at the beginning of November and the money we raised was also to help with our donations to children. We would have helped Precious Touch [charity] and we are helping the different ministries as well,” Roach said.

Vice President of the Helping Hands group and Head Girl of Wills Primary Gabrielle Lewis told Barbados TODAY that knowing what some children who are less fortunate have to go through in life, she believes it is an amazing opportunity for her and her peers to give back.

“It feels really good to give back to less fortunate children to be precise,” Lewis said.

President of Helping Hands Samuel Campion said: “It’s really a wonderful feeling just everywhere because it is really good giving back. It’s not all about taking. It just feels really good.” anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb