A parish church in Canning Town has joined a national Church of England initiative to deliver over one million Gift boxes across the UK.

St Matthias’ Church will play its part, aiming to deliver over 100 gift boxes full of Christmas treats to Newham residents this year. The box includes a blank Christmas card to share the love further by sending it on to someone else.

Love Your Neighbour campaign is a new initiative set up to unite hundreds of churches around the country in a grassroots UK-wide emergency response to the Covid-19 crisis.

Ben Atkins, vicar of St Matthias’ Church, said: “What a year it’s been — and a year where we’ve learned to look out for each other like never before. We love the idea of making this Christmas as special as possible, not just for us, but for our neighbours too, inspired by the wise men who gave gifts to Jesus himself.”

If you know someone living in E16, E15 or E13 postcodes who may be facing a hard Christmas this year due to COVID-19 pandemic or lockdown, please nominate them and their address by 18th December by emailing: christmas@saintmatts.org.uk, including your reasons why you’ve decided to nominate that person. The Christmas Gift Box will be delivered anonymously to them later this month.

This article was first published on December 4th and it was updated on December 15th.

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