This is the 8th year of Waltham Forest Secret Santa. We collect new gifts for women and children escaping domestic abuse, forced to spend the holiday season in a refuge shelter. We create lovely gift bags with these new donations, and then distribute them locally and around London, through domestic violence charities.

The first year we collected 200 gift bags, then 500, and last year around 1000 lovely gift bags were handed out!

In the year to Mar 2024, there were 94,609 reported incidents of domestic abuse. The good news is this is slightly down on the previous year. The bad news is this is still unforgivably high.

Our aim is to give these women and their children some hope, joy, & love from their community. A gift bag full of some brand new luxury and fun just for them. We hope to brighten these dark days, and let them know they are worthy of nice things. Some quotes we have received in the past show this can be the beacon of light they need:

"It really restored my faith in people, and that there is hope and a brighter future waiting for my daughter and me"

"I wasn't expecting to be overwhelmed by such love. The whole experience brought me to tears. The gifts were thoughtful and will always be appreciated"

With this money, we will also help support the local independent shops. We will buy gifts from small Waltham Forest stores, and will constantly post photos of what the GoFundMe money has bought, from where, on our Instagram page. So you will be helping the community in more ways than one!

This year the gifts will be given to: Solace Women's Aid, Refuge Women's Aid, Ashiana Network Charity , Kiran Support Services , Medaille Trust , Sista Space and Haven Network . If you know of another local charity you think we should support please let us know!

The last day for donations here is Wednesday 19th Nov. This will give us a few days to buy final gifts before the last collection day of Sun 23rd Nov.

For more info please find us on Instagram or contact us here.

Thank you!