Sewa Day’s Christmas Shoe Box Appeal brings joy to many in Manchester

This year, the team of Sewa Day Northwest in Manchester will give Christmas gifts to children with special needs in Newton Heath and the hardworking volunteers of Emmaus South Manchester, an independent local charity for the homeless.

In past years, the team has also distributed gifts to staff and children of special needs schools as well as volunteers of various food banks across Wythenshawe, an area in Manchester.

Sewa Day teams across the U.K. have given Christmas gifts to volunteers, vulnerable people, and children with special needs.

Sewa Day Northwest team has been helping people in need at Christmas time since the pandemic started.

Our inspiration is the hard-working volunteers who work at various foodbanks serving homeless people, teachers working at schools of children with special needs.

Our name is inspired by the Sanskrit word ‘Sewa’ which means ‘selfless service.’ Sewa is carried out with compassion and without the expectation of anything in return. It stems from the idea of giving back to the community in whatever way one can, may it be through time, efforts or money.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, the volunteers of Sewa Day Northwest have been doing selfless and co-ordinated work to support local communities through various drives.

Initially, just after the outbreak we helped the elderly who were advised to isolate by supplying groceries and any emergency needs that arose during the difficult time.

Our ‘Spread Some Joy’ campaign aimed at helping people through mental health issues and social isolation by sending them paintings and greeting cards with messages of positivity, made by young children in the community.

Caring for the carers of COVID-19 patients was another key pillar of our work during the pandemic, which included providing healthy food packs to ICU staff or providing PPE kits to nursing homes & care homes when PPE was in short supply.

We also raised money across the region to help people in India during the dreadful second wave.

Currently, our focus is to tackle food poverty that has worsened post Covid in the Greater Manchester region.

In past two years, our Manchester team alone has distributed around 21 tonnes of long-lasting vegetarian food to various food banks and food hubs. So far, the team has also distributed 14400 meals to the homeless and vulnerable.

More recently, Sewa Day did ‘Jal Sewa’ which included distributing water bottles to the runners of the Altrincham Marathon, Manchester Marathon and Manchester 10 K.