A WINTER’S TALE

‘A Winter’s Tale’ was a campaign aimed to raise awareness of how this season cripples many families already suffering great financial burdens. The aim was the showcase the different challenges that Winter brings to the most vulnerable, followed by the audience being given practical steps to alleviate the situation.

With warm HHUGS, we can rewrite their Winter’s Tale

The story of this year is drawing to a close. Few could have imagined a Spring and Summer rocked by an unprecedented global pandemic. As temperatures dip with the harsh onset of Winter, uncertainty remains as the crippling pandemic resurges. Vulnerable families have little hope of relief this season as many of their existing challenges intensify. In our community, there are mothers widowed and children orphaned by detention who face a chilling Winter’s Tale about to play out.

A Winter’s Tale

If the walls of her house could speak
It would paint a picture so very bleak
Of a single mother and her broken home
Gas bills mounting, freezing house, all alone

The stares towards her family are almost as cold
As the piercing icy winds this season does hold

If the elderly uncle could overcome the shame
“His son’s a terrorist” point the fingers of blame
He would tell how prison trips are so hard this season,
His failing health obeys no rhyme or reason

Alone, his longing grows nearly as dark
As the long Winter nights and the melancholy they spark

If her daughter’s outgrown coat could speak,
Perhaps its voice would be muted and meek
Knowing it cannot keep her small body warm
Playground bullies mock her clothing, old and torn

Children living as orphans face chilling ridicule
Adding to endless torment already at school

If the plates on the dinner table could plead
Perhaps they would ask for a few morsels more to feed
That shivering family forced to heat or eat
As bills rise, they cannot make ends meet

If your book of deeds were thrown open today
Perhaps there’d be warm deeds to display
For you thawed the frozen hope of a desperate family
And embraced them with a light of humanity

Protect a broken family from the cold, wind and hail
Your warm embrace can rewrite this Winter’s Tale

You can find the campaign here.