A Hucknall resident is aiming to raise £1000 to buy Christmas presents for local children.

Samantha Widnall has launched a 'Just Giving' page to collect donations for children who use the Ashfield Children's Centres.

Children's Centres, run by Nottinghamshire County Council, offer support, advice and information for families with young children in local communities across the county, including in Hucknall.

If the £1000 target is hit then Usbourne Publishing, for whom Ms Widnall is a community partner, will provide an additional £600 worth of free books on top of this.

On the 'Just Giving' page it says: "This money will allow us to buy Christmas presents for the children who use our services this could be in the form of books or activity sets."

Speaking exclusively to Hucknall Nub News, Ms Widnall said: "The friends of Ashfield team have just started. They're currently fundraising themselves for various different things within Ashfield.

"The lady that I'm working alongside, Michelle (Squires, a fundraiser with The Friends of Ashfield North Children's Centre), messaged me about having a stall for the books. For me to be able to have that stall she wanted a little bit of a donation towards books or whatever to go towards the centres for Christmas.

"I said that I could help out with that and set up a fundraising community book pledge where businesses and local people just donate on to the Just Giving page and that money is used to buy books, activities, or whatever they're after, for Christmas.

"It was quite scary to listen to what she was saying, how many people are now, since Covid, using centres and things like that. Her workload has doubled hence where the fundraiser thing has come from and they're trying to get as much money behind them to help other families; it's a bit of sad time at the minute, it'd definitely be nice to try and help somehow."

If you'd like to make a donation, the Just Giving page can be found here .