‘We are so proud of the people of Kibworth’: Residents come together to donate almost 800 Easter eggs for children in hospital

Derek Ward and Sam Shields dressed as a Easter Bunny have collected over 700 Easter Eggs for Leicester Royal Infirmary Children's Ward and The Well in Kibworth.
PICTURE: ANDREW CARPENTER — Derek Ward and Sam Shields dressed as a Easter Bunny have collected over 700 Easter Eggs for Leicester Royal Infirmary Children's Ward and The Well in Kibworth. PICTURE: ANDREW CARPENTER

Residents, businesses and students in Kibworth are all uniting behind the appeal to hand over the extra-special gifts to youngsters on the Children’s Ward at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

And dozens of Easter eggs will also be donated to The Well community hub which supports struggling villagers and runs a local foodbank.

The meteoric appeal is being spearheaded by Derek Ward and Sam Shields, the landlady at the Railway Arms pub in Kibworth Beauchamp.

Today Derek, manager at the O hairdressing salon in Kibworth Beauchamp, told the Harborough Mail: “We only decided to stage this mission for the first time here last month – and it’s exceeded all of our wildest expectations.

“We’ve already had over 700 Easter eggs given to us – and we are still accepting donations until this Wednesday.

“The whole thing has just gone through the roof,” said Derek.

“We were expecting to collect about 200 eggs and we’d have been happy with that.

“But the response from right across our brilliant community in Kibworth has just been phenomenal, it’s just exploded.

“We have now got enough Easter eggs to give two each to the 250 boys and girls in the Children’s Ward at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

“We’ll also be handing across over 200 eggs on top to the fantastic people at The Well here in Kibworth.

“Some of the stories are so inspiring,” said Derek.

“We’ve had one little girl and her brother who have saved up all their Christmas money and splashed out on about 40 eggs for us.

“We’ll be ferrying the eggs to the LRI on Thursday – and Sam will be dressing up as an Easter bunny bless her!

“Her pub, the Railway Arms, is absolutely jampacked with eggs, she can hardly move.

“We’d like to say a massive thank you to every single person, child and business who has contributed," said Derek.

“We are so proud of the people of Kibworth for overwhelmingly getting behind us.

“And I’m pretty sure we’ll be running this appeal again next year because it’s been such an enormous success.”