A 76 year old Elf and two disabled Santas bring joy to thousands
A 76 year old Elf and two disabled Santas have been bringing joy to thousands of people across the Gosport area.
For the past five years the Gosportarians have taken at least 20 days of December to bring their sleigh, made by HMS Sultan, to tens of thousands of people around Gosport.
Where most charities have concentrated on supermarket bucket shaking, they have concentrated on making children's Christmas for free, visiting schools and nurseries during the day and a different part of Gosport each night making lasting Christmas memories.
The makeup of this annual sleighride is quite astounding given the effort by three people and a handful of volunteer navigators.
Gosportarians Chair Malcolm Dent BEM said :"I took nearly 2,000 pictures and saw thousands more people enjoying the magic of Christmas and drove over 500 miles doing it. Each night I had to upload hundreds of pictures from that day and then publish the route for the next evening.
“On top of that I had a Blind Club to run each week as well as driving special needs groups in my minibus every Thursday and Friday, but Christmas and our sleigh is such an important part of people's lives that we just love it. We don't collect money, but the public donated over £2,000 in small change towards our minibus appeal.
“On an unrelated note, our charity minibus, named "Jemima Tinkerbel" by the special needs groups that I drive around each week was stolen in the early hours of Christmas Eve leaving scores of people without transport in January!
“Many thanks to the (very) small number of people who made the magic happen. We also had 5 volunteer navigators to direct me driving around the routes www.gosportarians,co.ukhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/1048599895192093”