A BIGHEARTED Twinbrook schoolgirl has raised over £200 for a local food bank by creating and selling 'Christmas Eve Packs'.
Ten-year-old Holy Evangelist Pupil, Kacie Magee, made special packs containing bespoke glasses, soft drinks, candy canes and reindeer food to sell in aid of Foodstock.
Her mum, Áine Magee, explained that Kacie first became involved in charity three years ago when her elves left money for her to buy food for the food bank. Since then she has set about raising funds for the food bank, raising well over £1,000 in recent years.
On Monday, she handed over a further £205 which will help those experiencing food and fuel poverty.
Áine said the initiative grew out of a desire to show Kacie that Christmas is "not all about receiving and there's people out there who are struggling".
"You can't even explain how proud we are," she said.
"Every year she doesn't care about anything else. She talks about it all year – 'what are we doing, and how are we going to raise money?'"
She added: "She doesn't really talk about her Christmas list, she just constantly talks about how much she's going to raise and what she can give back.
"We talk to her about families who won't have electric, who won't have gas, there's maybe kids there that won't have a meal," she continued.
"We've brought her up so that everything isn't a bed of roses and that everybody is one wage pack away from that. We're quite honest with her."
Foodstock founder, Paul Doherty, commented: "Kacie and her mother had seen what we'd been doing in terms of getting out to people who are really struggling over the Christmas period, and they were highlighting that this work is going to continue after Christmas and January will be a particularly difficult month.
"Fair play to this young lady. She set out and was very determined to raise as much money as she could to help people around her in this community. She raised £205 which is incredible. She's such a lovely young girl and she's so dedicated to helping people. We were blown away by it to be honest."
