BIG-hearted young people celebrated the season of goodwill by giving.

Young people donated a staggering 1,005 packets of after-dinner mints and 4,000 crackers for 1,000 hampers being put together for families in need this Christmas.

Charity Urban Outreach decided to almost double the number of Christmas Hampers being given out and pupils at Bolton School offered to help — collecting thousands of packets in just a couple of weeks so families can enjoy a traditional Christmas dinner.

Dave Bagley, chief executive of Urban Outreach, said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of something as profound as this project.

“There are 40,000 people involved in collecting the donations for the Christmas Hampers.

“That’s one and a half times the number of people it would take to fill the Macron Stadium.

“To know that the person who receives a hamper has had 40,000 people thinking about them, that’s really something.

“It’s a privilege for you to be able to give, it’s a privilege for us to receive those gifts, and it’s a privilege to give what other people have given.”

Last year the pupils and students collected 600 Christmas puddings and 600 festive packets of biscuits.

To raise the money to buy the items, the girls organised a cake sale and a separate brownies and sweets sale, and also held a stall at the junior boys’ school Christmas Fair. T

They gave up their evenings three times to pack bags at a local supermarket and made mini bunting to sell at the girls’ division Ceremony of Carols, making £100 from t that venture alone.

Lisa Quinn, aged 17, said: “I saw it as a big challenge, and also as a good challenge to do.

“It seemed impossible and there were times when we didn’t know if we would be able to do it, but we just knew we would somehow.

“We had a really good team who were all willing to give up a lot of their own time. Even though it’s been hard, we’ve all loved every day of it. It’s been worth all of the hard work.”

Pupils at Hesketh House, the Junior Girls’ School, joined in with the campaign, donating 101 boxes of after-dinner mints. The boys’ division held a “Give Up A Snack Week”, during which boys donated the money they would have spent on one snack to Urban Outreach instead.

Teacher Sophie Entwistle and Head of Community Action at the School, said“This has been a huge challenge, but the project has developed the team’s resourcefulness.

“ In their heads they just decided that they were going to hit the target, even if that meant thinking every night, ‘What else can we do?’ up to the very last day.”

She added: “When you meet someone like Dave, who is so inspirational, you can’t help but feel that you can make a difference to people’s lives. It’s been really tough this week, but for those 1,000 families in need of hampers, life is pretty tough every day, and that’s the thought that makes it pay off.”

Urban Outreach will donate each of the 1,000 hampers to a family in the local area who has been nominated to receive an extra-special gift this Christmas. These include families in poverty, distress, or affected by illness, who have had to put Christmas on hold. Each hamper contains everything needed to make a traditional Christmas Dinner, from the meal itself to the crackers and party hats.