STAFF at a home furniture store have launched a special appeal to give sick children in Furness a special Christmas.

The 'delivering joy' campaign ran by Dunelm stores across the country has returned for its second year after proving a successful.

Last year the firm donated 18,000 gifts to those who wouldn’t usually receive a present on Christmas day.

The Barrow store staff are yet again taking part and this year will be donating gifts to the children’s ward at Furness General Hospital.

Dunelm Team leader and duty manager, Tammy Harris, 48, is administrating the project alongside her manger Jonathan Sparks and hopes to help even more people than last year.

She said: “The delivering joy campaign is a really good idea for us to get involved with the community and help give back to people who wouldn’t normally receive anything on Christmas day.

“This year we are delighted to be donating the gifts to the Children's ward after they received 400 votes on the online poll we ran for the community to vote for who they wanted the gifts donated too.

“The hospital staff and people in it’s care have been through a lot with Covid, not getting a lot of visitors so it’s nice to give them something to look forward to and a boost over Christmas.”

People can donate by visiting the store on Hollywood Retail park, Barrow and taking a tag from the Christmas tree by the entrance which represents a local person so they can choose who gets the gift. People should then fill a gift bag with the gift and place it back under the tree, unsealed before December 10.

Tammy said: “It’s important that people who are wanting to donate to remember it is a children’s ward so every item must be brand new.

“It can be anything from a jigsaw, board games, baby rattle, anything.

“We just want to donate as much as possible as we were so thrilled to hear how happy the ward nurses were when we spoke to them over the phone that we would be donating gifts to the children.”

Once the gifts have been donated the ward staff will deliver the gifts throughout the Christmas period adding a smile to each childs face.

For more information visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/571160643515598.