Charity

The 2024 Christmas Toy Drive was one to remember this year as we continued our tradition of helping organisations and families during the festive period.

The Toy Drive got off to a crazy start with a 6am visit to The Entertainer, who had kindly agreed to add 20% to whatever we spent. After hours of clearing shelves, and loading a huge Luton van, we had spent a whopping £8000 on toys! Then, thanks to a very generous donation of £500 by a recent competition winner, it was on to B&M to buy gifts for the older kids, a massive thanks to Susan for her generosity.

Whilst at the unit sorting the toys into piles for each organisation, Sid put out a plea on his personal social media channels, asking for donations so that we could purchase Selection Boxes to give out at the same time…24 hours later, with Matt having done the same, they had raised a staggering amount which was nearly at £5000!!

This then enabled the team to go out and purchase games consoles for the Teenage Cancer Trust Ward at St James Hospital, and also funded a package of gifts for each of the patients who were going to be waking up in Hospital on Christmas Day, as well as 1000 selection boxes! Still with funds left over, both Matts went and raided Boots for additional gifts for the older children, including aftershaves, perfumes and skincare sets.

As donations carried on rolling in, the team decided they would put a post out where members of the All Star Family could nominate a family they think would be deserving of some help at Christmas, and two deserving families were picked at random to be taken on a shopping trip where they could purchase gifts for their children.

In addition to the Toy Drive, we also ran the All Star Prizes Christmas Cinema day, at which 40 families came and watched the Christmas classic, Home Alone at a private screening at Odeon Cinema Deluxe in Leeds, taking the total for this years toy drive to just short of £22,000!!

These were distributed to organisations across Leeds, Wakefield, Pontefract and Castleford, and a huge heartfelt thanks goes out to the All Star Family for your donations and continued support, which enables us to continue to spread love and joy at Christmas and also to each of the organisations who worked tirelessly to help ensure kids all over West Yorkshire had the best possible Christmas.

The organisations we distributed to were:-

The Teenage Cancer Trust Ward (J94) @ St James Hospital, Leeds

Nowell Community Centre, Harehills

LS14 Trust, Seacroft

BITMO, Belle-Isle

Bramley Care Bears, Bramley

Chapeltown Youth Development, Chapeltown

Homeless Street Angels, Leeds

The Old Fire Station, Gipton

Airedale Foodbank, Airedale

Pontefract Foodbank, Pontefract

Castleford Foodbank, Castleford

As part of Homeless Street Angels “Building The Dream” project, Shelley & Becky Joyce have campaigned and worked tirelessly to build Homeless Street Angels into the amazing transformative organisation it is today.

Over the last 7 years, the ladies have undertaken all manner of fundraising to support their homeless outreach program, which was set up in memory of Abi Houses’ namesake, Abi, who sadly passed away, and was the reason the girls founded Homeless Street Angels.

Fast forward to 2024 and the girls now operate from two sites in Leeds, and from their brand new site, Abi House, collaborate with some of the regions leading support services, and run a food bank supporting over 700 clients every month.

Abi House, located in Meanwood, will serve as a one-stop centre for the people the charity supports, including substance abuse rehabilitation and therapies, housing and recruitment advice as well as mental health support groups, food and clothing banks and much more.

The girls put an appeal out on Facebook whilst renovating Abi House, as they needed a TV for their soon-t0-be arts room, and the All Star Prizes team were quick to jump to their aid and purchased a 55″ Smart TV which will take pride of place in Abi House.

We wish Homeless Street Angels the very best of luck in their new premises, and we’re sure we will be teaming up with this amazing organisation again very soon.

If you’d like to see the video of the Abi House tour, check out our Facebook page.

Thank you again to the All Star Family for continuing to play with us, enabling us to make a positive impact on these worthy community projects on your behalf ❤️

During the Summer 2024, the All Star Prizes team decided it would be great to deliver something nice to hundreds of kids all across Leeds…and what do all kids like? ICE-CREAM!!!

Matt, Matt 2.0 and Liam teamed up with Bash from Rossi’s Ices, and hired the van out for a full day, and drove all over Leeds handing out free Ice-Cream to kids (and Benny the Dog 🐶😂).

The lads visited communities all over Leeds including Gipton, Seacroft, East End Park, Halton Moor, Belle-Isle, Middleton and Bramley, and in 8 hours managed to distribute almost 1000 ice creams to children all over Leeds.

The lads visited parks, community centres and many more locations and both Matt’s tried their hand at being an ice-cream man, and had great fun playing the jingles, and creating questionable looking ice-creams!

Thanks to all who contributed via the donation button, that helped make this day possible.

Matt 2.0 embarked on a trip across West Yorkshire, delivering vital food donations to 5 different community based organisations across the county, who were all doing fantastic work, feeding children and families from under-privileged areas.

Whilst on our Ice Cream day the previous week, the team were approached by several people asking if we could help out by making donations of food to various community projects.

The first stop of the day was to T Quality’s Leeds Distribution Centre, where Andy and Derek had kindly sold the produce at a heavily discounted rate, in order for us to help more people. Then it was on to Aldi, to spend the surplus budget on 100 loaves of bread!

Care packages were delivered to BITMO (Belle Isle), New Wortley Community Centre, Bramley Care Bears at Broadlea Community Centre, The Corner Cafe (Thornhill, Dewsbury), and St Richards Church (Seacroft)

Joanne Wood, Community and Tenant Co-Ordinator at BITMO said “This donation will help us feed several families, who would otherwise be struggling to put a hot meal on the table. We really cant thank All Star Prizes enough for what they have done”

The team were extremely busy over the easter period, as over £1,000 worth of Easter Eggs were purchased to donate to a number of West Yorkshire based community groups and charities.

With the cost of living crisis biting families hard, Easter can be a particularly difficult time financially and the All Star Team wanted to make sure as many children as possible woke up to an Easter Egg on Easter Sunday.

Matt and Sid both chose groups in their respective local areas to donate a portion of the Easter Eggs to,

Matt chose groups from the Leeds area and made donations to Epiphany Church Gipton Foodbank and St Richards Church Seacroft Foodbank, whilst Sid’s donations went to organisations in the Pontefract and Wakefield areas, with Featherstone and Sharlston Food Banks distributing his donation to 70 families.

Many heartfelt thanks to each and every one of our players, without whom, donations like this would not be possible!