A Christmas toy parade took place this weekend and included a marching band, a performance, several festive costumes and Santa Claus.
The free toy parade took place at 1pm, 3pm and 5pm through Liverpool City Centre.
Walk The Plank collaborated with Liverpool One to organise the event, and they joined forces with Claire’s House Children’s Hospice.
Representatives from each organisation, as well as multiple children from the hospice, attended the parade with their handmade toys.
Claire House’s Jennifer Hanley said it was brilliant and talked about how excited all of the children were.
“One little girl I know was practicing her royal wave as she went through. They all really enjoyed it. I think it’s a nice memory,” she said.
She also explained why this was important for the hospice.
She said: “For us, it’s about awareness, you don’t realise that someone in the parade might use Claire House, they might go on to fundraise for Claire House, so having our names on the flags in Liverpool One is brilliant.”
Jennifer added that the parade was an amazing experience for a lot of the children who wouldn’t usually go out on a Saturday with their family due to medical difficulties.
She said: “With our families it can’t just be ‘come on let’s go’, there’s a lot of medical needs which can be a massive thing, but we had a really good turnout.”
She explained that Walk The Plank went to the hospice to make the toys with the children, which they now get to take home to their families and keep forever.
“It’s a nice full circle, they went from making them, to then showing them off in the parade today which is really good,” she added.
She said that it was really important to be at the parade because people who would have not otherwise known about them, might now have the opportunity to fundraise and help to keep them running.
