This Christmas, the Congleton Santa charity effort has raised more than £11,000 thanks to the hard work of a team of volunteers, collectors, and the generosity of the people of Congleton.

The money has been shared out among the local charitable causes within the Congleton area and the charity has expressed its thanks to everyone who supported recent fundraising when Santa toured the area on his sleigh.

A spokesperson for the charity says: "If we have accidentally missed any houses on the routes, Santa and the team are very sorry as we know the importance of sharing goodwill to all we try to see.

"In 2022 we supported numerous local charitable causes and made donations to Buglawton Scouts, Centre Stage, Congleton Guides, Congleton Town u12s, Friends for Leisure, Friends of Eaton Bank, Mossley Preschool, Mossley PTA, Social Supermarket, Storehouse Food Bank, Titans, Vale Juniors, Visyon and Dougie Mac Hospice in Barlaston.

"That's just to name a few of the causes supported by collectors on the nights.

"We are thankful as ever to the many supporters of Santa's annual town visit including Pooles Recovery for their invaluable support in getting Santa around, Alpha and Street Legal Tyres, Congleton 4 Congleton, Dane Housing, Beaverbrooks the Jewellers, and Congleton Town Council for storing the sleigh.

"Still on the 'Nice List' are the local shops that take collection buckets during December, including Hightown Post Office, Jollyes, Lower Heath Chippy, Iceland, Leek United, Bargain Booze, Astbury Garden Centre Cafe and Bromley Co-op.

"You can check out website congletonsanta.org.uk/donate to see ways to donate both now and throughout the year.

"Your gift would be collected securely by PayPal. You don't need a PayPal account to donate this way, you can also use a credit card, debit card or paypal.me/congletonsanta

"Please select Gift Aid it will increase the value of your donation by 25%!

You can also link to us using smile via "settings" in the amazon app on your phone.

"If you want to give from your phone by text message, then please text SANTA and the amount (in whole pounds) you wish to donate to 70450. You can donate as much as £20, or as little as £1. So texting SANTA 2 to 70450 would see you donate £2.

"Each donation is a one-off (unless you want to text again!), and is collected securely by DONR. (Texts cost the donation amount plus one standard network rate message).

"You can donate by Facebook donate or you can create your own Facebook fund raiser for Congleton Santa. We are also registered as an eBay Charity, Simply search for "Congleton Christmas Collection" when listing your items and you can donate between 10 and 100% of the sale to help local Congleton charities.

!We'll even accept cheques payable to "Congleton Christmas Collection" You can now also set up a regular, reoccurring, monthly, quarterly, half yearly or yearly Direct Debit to donation to us safely with Charities Aid Foundation – just fill in the form."