Did you know?
The Haydon Wick Association started the Christmas Parcel Scheme in the 1970’s and ran the programme until the early 2000’s. The produce during this time was a small frozen chicken, stuffing, carrots, sprouts, potatoes, Christmas pudding, mince pies and custard – which provided the perfect Christmas dinner to those who lived alone within the parish of Haydon Wick. Haydon Wick Parish Council helped with the delivery of this and eventually took on the scheme in the early 2000’s.
Using experience from assisting with the project for over 30 years, the Parish Council quickly changed the produce to tinned and packaged goods providing a longer shelf life and included some additional goods to enjoy throughout the winter. This also allowed for more delivery time so that the frozen chickens didn’t defrost!
One year, Safeway (at the time) didn’t have enough chickens, so the Area Manager was driving around all the Safeway’s in the region collecting any frozen chickens that were in stock – which resulted in some being different sizes – and caused lots of banter with the elderly people who received them and a competition of who had the biggest chicken!
The parcels have been delivered come rain or snow, one year the snow was so heavy the community bus was struggling with the round.
The Council is proud to have been involved with this project for the last 60 years and knows how valuable it is to the recipients each year.
The Council is very excited to start preparing this year’s Christmas parcels
