Virtual Christmas market full of local businesses aims to raise money for a Sunderland family support charity

Danielle White, from Redhouse, has created a virtual Christmas market full of local businesses with the aim of raising money for Sunderland Area Parent Support (SAPS) – a charity which helps disadvantaged families across Wearside.

Local businesses are invited to buy a virtual stall for £2, with the proceeds going to SAPS so they have create Christmas Eve boxes for children who need them most.

The group has almost 900 members with a variety of local businesses and mum-of-one Danielle has explained why she set up the virtual market and revealed her surprise at the support so far.

The 32-year-old said: “Last year I saw the SAPS page asking for donations and allocating children to people so they could have presents specific to them.

"I decided that I wanted to do bigger and better this year and thought a virtual market due to Covid would not only helps SAPS but local businesses as well.

"It is not just the market stalls, I’m running raffles and doing games to help raise some more money and prizes will be drawn live on the page when SAPS told their actually Christmas market in December.

"I’ve had lots of messages of support and people wanting to get involved, I’m really surprised by it all and some of the businesses have said that they will even donate some of the profits to SAPS.

"I think that it will only get bigger and bigger from now until the run up to Christmas.”

Sue Leigh, the manager of SAPS, has explained how much the virtual Christmas market means to all the staff and people that they support.

She commented: “Every little donation helps us out, every penny counts for us especially as we have been really busy throughout the Covid lockdowns.

"We do everything from supporting families with food parcels, finding employment, home visits, basically if we can’t do it, we know of someone who will be able to help them.

"Every year we do Christmas Eve boxes for the children and they always love them as we personally tailor them to each child.

"We get them to write a list of what they want and then with the donations that we receive, we try and build the perfect box for them no matter how old they are.

"The aim is to have all the boxes sorted as soon as possible after our official Christmas market on December 4, as all proceeds from both that and the virtual one will go towards them.

You can join the virtual Christmas market and check out the variety of local businesses which are already taking part by clicking here.

If you run a local business and want to take up a stall at SAPS Christmas market on December 4, which will be held at Meadow Nurseries in Doxford Park, then you need to call 0191 520 3444 and ask for Sue.

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