Businesses across Birmingham and the West Midlands are being urged to back an annual campaign which will deliver toys to children in need at Christmas.
Brumwish is back again for 2024 and comes as the city region faces a child poverty emergency.
The campaign is being run by our sister titles BirminghamLive and the Birmingham Mail newspaper and they are appealing for local companies and their staff to get involved and start donating (details below).
If your company supports the campaign, please let us know by emailing naomi.desouza@reachplc.com as we want to celebrate those in the city who offer its children a helping hand.
Brumwish 2024 - buy a gift for a child in need
BrumWish 2024 is Birmingham Live's festive drive to get thousands of gifts to children and young people across our city - among them the homeless, the vulnerable, kids in care, kids who are poorly or struggling, and kids who have little.
There are THREE simple ways to help.
- Buy a new gift from . In just a click your donation will be whizzing its way to our volunteers at Edgbaston Stadium.
- Donate money to hosted by Thrive Together Birmingham - this will help pay for gifts for kids with specialist needs or specific wishes.
- Buy a gift and, even better, rope in friends, neighbours and workmates to do the same, then drop off your pressies at Edgbaston Stadium, Edgbaston Road, B5 7QU on Friday 6th December, 10am - 3pm; Saturday 7th December, 10am - 1pm; or Monday 9th December, 10am - 1pm. Volunteers will be there to help you. Please don't wrap your gifts. You can also drop off by arrangement until Monday 16th December - contact Louise on 07469 979286.
Thanks to our partnership with #Toys4Birmingham, every single gift will find a good home in the loving care of a child living in B&Bs or hotels, hostels or refuges, children receiving support from specialist organisations and charities, and families being supported by children's centres and charities around the city.
Making up the Brumwish and Toys4Birmingham gang are Thrive Together Birmingham, Birmingham Playcare Network, Warwickshire Cricket Foundation (the charitable arm of Warwickshire County Cricket Club), Birmingham Forward Steps and BirminghamLive/Birmingham Mail.
Thank you to Amazon º£½ÇÊÓƵ and the amazing team at the Sutton Coldfield depot for their support.
more children than ever before are growing up in poverty, in care or are homeless in England's second city.
Across Birmingham, nearly half of all children (46 per cent) are living in impoverished households where easy access to food, heating and decent clothing is not a given.
In some neighbourhoods, this rises to 74 per cent and it was found that teachers, health staff and youth workers were routinely dipping into their pockets to buy food for hungry kids.
Reporters visited parents in properties so rotten with mould that their asthmatic offspring ended up in hospital and doctors expressed worries about the mental and physical toll of poverty on young people.
It is hardly surprising that, for many parents, buying toys and gifts might seem frivolous or too big a stretch for challenged budgets.
Brumwich has again teamed up with the Toys4Birmingham campaign to appeal to readers and businesses to buy an extra gift this winter for a local child in need. Ensuring they have at least one gift to open is an incredible gesture.
BirminghamLive and Birmingham Mail editor Graeme Brown said: "Birmingham's child poverty crisis grows clearer every year which means Brumwish gets more and more important.
"Thousands of Brummie children face waking up to a very different situation on Christmas Day. They won't be in a house surrounded with presents but a hotel room with just about enough to eat.
"The great thing about Brumwish is you can personally do something about it. Click on the wishlist, buy a gift and we will do the rest with our charity partners.
"You will personally buy a present that could make a child's day who would otherwise face a fairly miserable December 25."
