Christmas Jumper Day

Are you wearing your Christmas Jumper?

Every December, we celebrate ‘Christmas Jumper Day’. The event was created by the charity ‘Save the Children’ in an effort to raise money for children in need worldwide. Today, you may see people wearing fun, colourful and festive jumpers, and donating money to help others. Some children might not be so lucky to receive gifts on Christmas Day. Others might not have enough nutritious food, or be able to access school or see a doctor when they are poorly. Some children may have just escaped war, famine or even a natural disaster such as a flood or earthquake. These children will have had to leave their homes behind and travel great distances to find safety. The money raised from Christmas Jumper Day (and other fundraising events) helps to ensure the basic needs of these children are met.

Amazingly, the charity ‘Save the Children’ was actually created over 100 years ago in 1919, after WW1. The first Christmas Jumper Day fundraising event was held in December 2012. So, this year, it is the tenth anniversary since the awareness day began. The very first Christmas jumpers were thought to have begun as hand-knitted jumpers made out of thick wool in Scandinavia and Iceland. Their inhabitants began making these jumpers in the nineteenth century. Over time, the ‘Christmas Jumper’ has evolved from thick wool to sweatshirt material and from knitted patterns to sequins, glitter and musical parts!

So, I hear you ask, if I donate some money to Save the Children today, how is it spent? Here are some examples of where your money goes:

• £1 could buy a set of pencils to help a child learn to write their name
• £2 could help eight children fight against bacterial infections such as pneumonia with the use of antibiotics.
• £7 could provide warm clothes in the winter months for children living in war-torn countries.
• £12 could buy seventy-five packs of food paste for extremely malnourished children. These packs provide everything the children are missing from essential fats to extra vitamins. Additionally, because the children’s stomachs are not used to regular, solid food, the paste is easier for them to digest.
• £50 could buy a rapid cholera test kit. Cholera is an incredibly deadly disease and is spread through drinking water and infected food.
• £200 could buy a stove and enough fuel to heat a classroom for an incredible five months.

If you don’t have a Christmas jumper in your wardrobe, here are some easy ways to ‘jazz up’ a normal jumper.

• Wrap some tinsel around it
• Stick some cotton wool balls on it to make it look like falling snow
• Hang some Christmas baubles from it
• Glue or sticky tape some sequins to it
• Sew some ribbons on to it and tie them into bows
• Attach some battery-operated lights to it

In fact, often the more silly the jumper – the better! So, if you do see a charity box for Save the Children today or even over the next few days, just pop that loose change in. Your donation, no matter how big or small, is going to such a worthy cause.