VIDEO: Janice prepares for festive fairs

Everyone likes to get ahead for Christmas, but Janice Hinden has been preparing since last year!

Janice has been making handmade wooden crafts for the last 12 months to sell in the run up to December 25, with all proceeds going towards The Brick and Help The Homeless.

She’ll now be spending her weekends selling the crafts on stalls at various locations across the town.

“I started on Boxing Day last year,” said Janice, who has spent months making the festive delights including wreaths, candles and decorations, after deciding she wanted to help people who were struggling.

“We make these Christmas crafts throughout the year, then sell them nearer to Christmas. We’ll have stalls across Wigan at the weekends.”

Janice, from Poolstock, began purchasing the materials immediately after last Christmas, while they were on sale at a reduced price thus giving a higher profit margin to donate to charity.

The campaign is a repeat of the same idea Janice launched last year, which was a huge success and raised £1,400 for The Brick.

And this year, ambitious Janice hopes not only to beat last year’s target, but double it.

She said: “Our target this year is a lot higher. We are hoping to make a lot more for the charities. This year we also have more of an inkling about what will sell.

“Snowmen, reindeers - we’ve made about 250 of them - and there are also wreaths and Christmas boxes.”

Janice launched her first craft selling campaign last year after realising the extent of the borough’s homelessness issue.

“We were walking through Wigan after my birthday last April,” she said.

“We’d been for a meal, and walking through Wigan shocked me and my husband.

“The amount of people in the streets. When you see them sitting in doorways, it’s heartbreaking. This is my way of giving back to them, of giving back to society.”