My Christmas Donation To Dorset County Hospital

So today I have been feeling all festive! I have officially finished my Christmas Shopping and can start to wrap before I’m asked to un wrap it all for another story! Dorset County Hospital is very close to my heart and I wanted to bring a smile to everyone’s faces.

I started this mammoth haul back in August 2014 and it truly has been stressful! Checkoutsmart kindly donated £200 towards this donation which went to toys, books, M&S toiletries e.t.c. Approved Food gave us £25 worth of their bargain food and household goods. Last but not least Wingman gave us 30 bottles of their fab 3-in-1 Shower Gel! That left £700 down to me so how did I do it?

Firstly, my postman and I have become great friends over the past few months with the sheer amount of freebies coming through my mail box! Freebies have been a great way to accumulate stocking fillers. From beauty products to toiletries. I have couponed quite a few items mainly toiletries as we have had so many great freebies this year! I took great advantage of the M&S 50% off gifting weekend, Wilko’s 50% off Toy Sale and some great glitches we have also had this year. My favourite is the FREE Apple iMac keyboards I got (£10 each) due to an Amazon Glitch.

As you can see on the Vlog the sheer volume of products were crazy. I didn’t actually realise I had collected so much! Now to today! With my family working in the hospital and myself having many visits to Dorset County Hospital I have become friends with a lot of staff there. So felt it was the right place to go with my haul to make them smile! First of all we went to the Fourtuneswell ward (Cancer Ward) Having lost both my Nan’s to the nasty disease, I thought it would really effect me and make me emotional. Surprisingly I had a great time laughing and having a joke with the staff. We couldn’t film or take any pictures with the patients as I felt it disrespectful in their condition to be plastered all over the internet. The Staff will be wrapping the gifts and giving them to the patients Christmas Day 🙂

(Fourtuneswell with Staff Sister Tracy, Staff Nurse David & HCA Maria)

Next we met Susie the Lady who has organised this very busy day for us and we headed up to the Kingfisher ward (Children’s Ward). We met some very cute Tots who didn’t know what to make of all the toys while waiting for their appointments. I met Julie who is the playtime manager there, she knows all about coupons! Julie was lovely and features in our Vlog also.

Kingfisher Ward ( Playtime Manager Julie, Alfie & Grace)

Altogether it has been a great day. Not only has it brought a smile to my face seeing such optimism in these wards. I have managed to put many smiles on patients who are sadly in for Christmas. They say it makes you feel very lucky and grateful for what you have in life and it really does! The best part is how much did I spend from my coupon purse? The Grand Total was….£3.

Merry Christmas Everyone xx