🎄 Brighton & Hove Care Leavers Christmas Dinner 2026 ⛄

Welcome! We are a local community providing a magical Christmas Day celebration, festive meal and companionship for young care leavers across Brighton.

Explore to learn more and how you can get involved and support ✨

What is the Christmas Dinner event?

Driven by their own experiences in care, Shalyce Lawrence and Jerome Harvey-Agyei co-founded The Topé Project to provide the first "Christmas Day" event for young people who would otherwise be alone. In commemoration of their friend Topé the event aimed to bring together care leavers, create positive memories and inspire them. As Jerome reflects "when you leave care, that's when you realise life is only going to get scarier. And Christmas is the day when you're reminded you don't have a family." For both Shalyce and Jerome it's was more than just a meal; it’s about fostering change and providing the "over-nurturing", the care, connection and community that every care leaver deserves.

The poet, memoirist playwright curator and broadcaster Lemn Sissay, envisioned the Gold from the Stone Foundation. With a mission to ensure no young care leaver feels alone on Christmas Day GFTS supports communities of volunteers across the UK to create extraordinary Christmas Dinners which gift the joy of belonging. The Christmas Dinners offer a warm welcome, a beautifully prepared meal, gifts, hairdressing, creative activities, entertainment, and above all a sense of belonging, to those who may otherwise be alone on Christmas Day.

Since 2013, there have been 155 Christmas Dinners in 35 towns and cities, reaching 7,500 care-experienced young people. However, there has not be an event in Brighton & Hove for our Care Experienced young people for over 7 years. Support us in making this a reality in Brighton & Hove on Christmas Day 2026 and onwards.

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Support

There are a number of different ways you can support!

Fundraise 🧚🏼‍♂️ Volunteer ❤️ Donate ✨ Partnerships

🧚🏼‍♂️ Join our 50 Fairies 🧚🏼‍♂️

Our Head Fairy has a mission: Find 50 Fairies in 50 days. Each Fairy has one simple challenge: Raise £50. However you fancy.

We need 50 Fundraising Fairies. Could one of them be you? ✨

🧚🏼‍♂️ Join our Fairy Fundraisers 🧚🏼‍♂️

All fundraising is collected and managed through Open Collective.

I'd like to help in some way

We already have our amazing volunteer team in place for our 2026 event. However, do please get in touch if you think you can help in any way, but popping us an email.

I'd like to donate to support the event

It's easy to donate to support the event. Click here for our donation page through the Open Collective.

I'm a Brighton business or organisation

We are looking both for partnerships offering gifts, food and services in kind to help us make the day a success. Contact us to explore!

Get in touch

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