Christmas tree festival promotes vital services

The Famous Christmas Tree Festival has begun at The Gateway in Warrington.

Held inside The Gateway on Sankey Street, the festival aims to give awareness to the charities and organisations that are available in Warrington. Initially, charities and groups who were located in The Gateway building took part in the festival but now several voluntary, charity and social enterprise organisations who are present in the town centre, also take part.

The festival allows the groups to showcase their creative skills by decorating a 5ft Christmas tree and showcasing them at The Gateway. Each tree is different to the rest and represents that particular organisation.

Now in its sixth year, the event has attracted more than 10 organisations and will run until December 20th.

Bryan Dargie, Capacity Builder for Warrington Voluntary Action, said: “We have so many visitors and so much footfall but you don’t always realise who is in here so this was a way of highlighting the personality of the organisation.

“There’s a lot of organisations who support the town wider who just aren’t here, but this year we have gone outside and represented them.

“It’s about giving organisations a voice to new people. We have so many groups that never get a chance to have a bit of a platform and this is a nice, fun way of doing it and to get the community to engage with.”

A range of organisations have created Christmas trees which can be viewed at The Gateway, including Warrington Voluntary Action, Lifetime, PSC, Warrington Wolves Foundation, Citizens Advice, Home-Start, Healthwatch and many others.

To find out more about the festival, and the organisers head to Warrington Voluntary Action here.