Locals in Wolverhampton were surprised with a visit from Father Christmas last night, as he met kids up and down the Scotland's Estate dishing out gifts and hearing the city's little-one's Christmas wishes.
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00:00Hello, it's Dan here at the Express and Star and today we are in Wolverhampton
00:05because the Rotary Club is putting on a special event where Father Christmas is
00:09coming to visit all the kids in the Scotland's state.
00:12Hi, my name is Mark Hayward, I'm the president of the Chetmore Rotary Club and I've had the privilege of being there for the last three years.
00:19The Rotary Club is a voluntary organisation for anybody to join, male or female, who want to serve.
00:27The motto is service before self and so it's people who want to enjoy fellowship and fun together,
00:33but also with the purpose of raising money for charities.
00:35This event with going around the estates and our Santa sleigh has been going for more than 20 years now.
00:42We go around supermarkets, we go to Sainsbury's and we go around five or six different of the local estates
00:49where we're kind of meeting with local families as you can see this evening.
00:54Having a wonderful time seeing them meet Santa and to kind of give a little small gift away
01:00and ultimately it's a way of putting back into community something that we might want to kind of,
01:07we've been very privileged in kind of our lives and we just want to make sure that everybody benefits
01:12in some way from a bit of fun, a bit of entertainment and enjoying each other's time together.
01:18My name is Amelia and I'm from Wolverhampton.
01:22Rebecca from Wolverhampton.
01:24I think things like this is a good thing because it makes children happy to see Santa.
01:31Yeah, same and the kids love seeing Santa on the street.
01:35There's not many places now where you can type the children so this is, something's really special
01:41and she loves seeing every year.
01:42I'm probably, I'm really obsessed with like reborn dolls these days
01:49and I kind of like skincare and books and stuff.
01:54My name is Jack, I am from Wolverhampton, Wensfield and I am 23
01:58and I am an administrator for a forklift company.
02:03So I feel like this is a good thing, the reason why it brings a lot of people together.
02:07I also think as well because it's good for the children to see Santa.
02:11I think it also brings a lot of people together as well in terms of understanding different charities
02:18because I know this is a royalty free charity so I feel like it also gives good exposure
02:23to people that wouldn't actually know about it as well.
02:26Hi there, I'm Sergeant Pete, I'm from Perth and I'm 36 years old.
02:30So this event, we knock the doors so the little kids can see Santa.
02:36This is my eighth year knocking the doors but I've been in the Army Cadets for nine years.
02:41It's mainly raising money for local charities, not only that,
02:45but you can actually see the youth organisations helping out the local charities as well,
02:51such as the Tetler Rocha Club.
02:53We couldn't do this without the support of Whittock Hall School,
02:57who look after our sleigh over the year.
02:59Lister's have provided the tow vehicle for the sleigh this year, otherwise Santa would be walking.
03:04And we've got the Army Cadets from 3 Mercian who come and support us
03:10and we're able to leave the vehicle overnight between our sleigh collections at 3 Mercian in Faldings Park.
03:17So all of these people, plus our 35, 40 Rotarians,
03:23all contribute to actually making this a fantastic event for the youngsters and their families.
03:28And then the lovely by-product is the financial rewards of that £30,000 over the year of our events.
03:35Think of that going back into our own community.
03:38Absolutely every penny goes straight back into the community.
03:41We're just volunteers giving up only our time to have the privilege to enjoy this, this evening.