Last year, The Press and Journal gave away £5,000 to charities in our readership areas through our Tokens for Toys competition.
This year, we’re doing it all again and are giving four of region’s most worthy causes a boost going into the festive period.
Each Tokens for Toys charity is guaranteed £1,000 and the one which collects the most tokens from our print edition will receive an extra £1,000.
Hilton Family Support in Inverness is one of the four charities involved alongside Home-Start East Highland, Friends of Orchard Brae and SensationALL.
Jane McLean, charity administrator at Hilton Family Support, says the charity’s work is helping those in need in one of Scotland’s most deprived areas.
“We primarily work around the Hilton area of Inverness, which is sadly one of the more deprived areas of Inverness,” says Jane.
“It’s seen as one of the top 15% deprived areas in Scotland for levels of unemployment and lots of other issues.
“We saw a need for help and support particularly among families with young children in the local area, so we aim to give them help in both practical and emotional ways.”
From support groups and day trips to providing money for school uniform costs, Hilton Family Support covers a lot of ground for children and parents in need.
“We tend to work with families with under school age children,” says Jane.
“But we can also help with the parents who might want help writing a CV or job application.
“We get people together during the week for talks and support groups on topics like healthy eating, budgeting and debt management.
“A lot of the parents that we have come into us lack confidence, so we [aim to] build relationships between parents here.
“We have parents come back to volunteer once their children have all grown up, which is a recognition of how they’ve built confidence and how well their children have come on too.”
During lockdown, the charity also provided hot meals and fresh fruit to families to help prevent them from going hungry.
With Tokens for Toys, Jane feels that being part of the competition is hugely beneficial to the charity.
“We’d actually been talking about getting our profile out there so that more people know about the charity, especially as we have more spaces now coming out of lockdown,” she explains.
“A lot more people will hopefully find out about all the work that we do through this competition.
“Also, for us to receive any financial help is fantastic. Having the funds to help these families in need is huge for us.”
The charity has set up a local collection point at Anchor Café, Tomatin Road, Inverness, for readers who wish to collect any tokens for Hilton Family Support.
