Together4Bristol : Christmas Trees and Gifts for Prisoners

Christmas Trees and Gifts for Prisoners

Dear Friends

This year Sixty-One is taking part in Treefest, Bristol’s favourite Christmas Tree festival! Treefest is a spectacular festive display of Christmas trees held within the splendid gothic church of St Mary Redcliffe. It’s an opportunity for us, along with other charities, to decorate a Christmas tree to tell thousands of visitors about our work and the Christmas Gift Project. Inspired by Isaiah 61, Sixty-One's tree will be decorated with oak leaves and crowns. Each of our partner hubs have joined with us to create the tree decorations. Every decoration depicts a good quality that its maker would like to be known for, expressing their immense value and all that they have to offer our city.

Underneath our tree, you’ll also find a selection of the presents that will be inside the 1,400 gift bags shortly going into our three local prisons as part of our Christmas Gift Project. St Mary Redcliffe recently unveiled four contemporary stained-glass window designs celebrating Bristol’s rich multicultural past and present. The new panels depict Jesus in multiple ethnicities and with a diverse group of neighbours facing the future in a display of hope and togetherness. All four window panels ask the question “Who is my neighbour?” What a fitting setting in which to display our tree and the gifts that will soon be reminding people in prison that they are not forgotten, that there is a hope and a future for them, and that there is support and a welcome on release. If you’d like to donate towards our Christmas Gift Bag Project, you can do so here. You can also follow along on our Sixty-One Facebook page to see some sneak previews of our tree, or why not go along to St Mary Redcliffe between 7th and 10th December and see our tree (and many beautiful others) for yourself! With very best wishes Elizabeth, CEO Sixty-One

_{Posted: December 2023}