WEST DORSET is showing its community spirit this Christmas, as residents come together to help those less fortunate during the festive season.

A number of fundraising campaigns are going ahead to support anyone who may be struggling during the Christmas period.

Bridport Round Table's 'Christmas Joy Campaign' was created with the aim of ensuring struggling families in the area would be able to enjoy a traditional Christmas dinner.

The round table set up the campaign in early November with an initial goal of raising £5,000. The funds raised will go towards packaging and distributing as many Christmas food parcels as possible to families in the Bridport and Beaminster area.

The parcels will contain all the necessary ingredients for a full Christmas Dinner for a family of four, including a locally sourced turkey with all the trimmings, a cheeseboard, a Christmas pudding and a Yule log, along with chocolate and sweets enough to last the Christmas period.

Andrew Van Cuylenberg, a member of the Bridport Round Table, said: "This has been an incredibly hard year for all us, but some have suffered more than most.

"We had a meeting late October, we could all sense the impending lockdown was coming and we were brainstorming ideas on what we could do.

"We knew it would be a difficult Christmas for a lot of people and we came up with the idea to ensure that those who were struggling this year would have everything they needed for a proper Christmas dinner.

Funds raised over the original £5,000 goal will go towards the distribution of vouchers to those with an urgent need, to be spent at local butchers and greengrocers. This will ensure families and the vulnerable will be able to support themselves over the festive period.

The ‘Bridport Community Campaign’ Facebook group is encouraging residents to make someone smile this Christmas through their new campaign - with residents encouraged to take a tag from special fundraising trees, buy and wrap a gift, attach the tag and return it by December 16.

The idea is to ensure the elderly in the town with no family receive a present this Christmas.

Three trees with tags are located at Groves Nurseries, Morrisons and Spar in West Bay. Each gift tag gives you a name of the person, which home they are with and what that person likes.

For further information, please visit the Bridport Community Support Facebook group.

Bridport Team Ministry, a group of parish churches, is aiming to raise £2,000 to provide Christmas hampers and stockings to families in need in Bridport.

Each hamper costs approximately £30 and will be full of fresh, vegetables, fruit, meat and other seasonal goods to create a traditional Christmas meal.

Every £5 raised will provide a family with a stocking, containing age appropriate, fun items and toys for the children to play with on Christmas day.

The team will distribute the hampers and stockings themselves.

This is an annual fundraiser, with 46 hampers and 68 stockings provided to Bridport families last year.

A spokesperson for the Bridport Team Ministry said: "We expect with these difficult times the demand will be high so every little donation counts. Please give generously if you can. Thank you."

To donate, visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/hampersandstockings