A late Christmas present is always appreciated — especially when it brings joy to children spending the festive season in hospital.

Two St John’s Sixth Form students, Caitlin Bell and Lily Atkinson, were recently awarded the Team Volunteering Award 2025/26 at the Bishop Auckland Town Council Awards. They received this recognition for organising Christmas gift donations for the Children’s Ward at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Caitlin and Lily described how the idea began as part of the Sixth Form’s core RE programme, where the theme was “make a difference to your local community.” They explained:

“We were inspired to do this by our core RE programme where the topic was to 'make a difference to your local community'. We emailed charity workers who were a part of the County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust Charity who helped us with our project and emailed us back a wish list of gifts the children on the ward had asked for off Santa.

 

We shared this list with the entire sixth form and within a short period of time both staff and sixth formers had filled our collection table with all of the children's wishes.

 

We decided it would also be a good idea to donate gifts for the children's families as well as writing each child and staff member on the ward a Christmas card.

 

Mrs Sturdy and Emma the Chaplin took us to the hospital to deliver the gifts to the ward personally. The staff spent lots of time with us which was both inspiring and rewarding and they arranged for Santa to deliver these gifts to the children on Christmas morning.”

Their efforts ensured that every child on the ward — and even their families — received something special at Christmastime, along with handwritten cards for both patients and staff.

Caitlin and Lily’s kindness and initiative have made a meaningful impact, and their well‑deserved award recognises their hard work and generosity.