THE Child and Adolescent Unit at Leighton Hospital said a big ‘thank you’ to the local community for generous donations received during the run-up to Christmas.

Young patients were given toys and games from companies and organisations in the surrounding area to make spending the festive period in hospital a little less daunting.

Donations were received by:

Sainsbury’s. Gifts were donated by the generous customers of the Nantwich supermarket, based on Middlewich Road.

Mecca Bingo. Customers at the Crewe branch made their Christmas present campaign a great success.

Cooper Buckley Haulage. Drivers from the company, based at Crewe Gates Industrial Estate, gave boxes of brand new toys to the unit instead of sending Christmas cards to each other.

Sandbach Market Traders. Shaun Lomas, market traders representative, asked Sandbach stall holders and their customers to give a number of gifts to the patients, and was overwhelmed by the positive response he received.

NWF Fuels. Toys were kindly donated by the Nantwich-based fuel distributors.

Crewe Alexandra. The Unit was visited by players from the football club’s first team and under 18s squad, who spoke with patients and their families as well as bringing them gifts and club merchandise.

Andrea Collins, ward manager for the Unit, said: “On behalf of our patients, parents and staff, I’d like to thank everybody who has helped to make these donations possible – whether they are customers, employees or owners.

“Each our of patients will be given toys on Christmas morning, with the remaining gifts put in our play room for use by everybody all year round.

“This simple gesture really does make a huge difference to those children who are unfortunately in hospital during the festive period.”