CAERWENT DAY NURSERY donated children’s toys to flood victims after the recent Storm Claudia, just in time for Christmas.

The idea of the toy drive came almost immediately after the flood, as their sister nursery Monmouth Day Nursery was flooded, as well as some of homes of the children and families who attend their nursery.

The nursery was up to three feet deep in the worse impacted areas, but the support from the community in the immediate aftermath was overwhelming.

They had neighbours who had lost everything in their homes knocking on the door offering to help them clean up.

They could see how well the community had scrambled to support those who were in desperate need of essential items like cleaning products, offers of a play to stay, even having some nursery families putting up other nursery families, people that only knew each other from drop offs and pickups.

They knew they wanted to be involved in helping in some small way. They decided to put together a toy appeal amongst Caerwent Day Nursery and Matharn Day Nursery, not expecting a lot but hoping that they would get a few small donations they could pass to to the impacted families and their immediate community around the nursery.

The day after they published their plea, they had a family arrive in a people carrier and carried toys which she had donated but also gathered from neighbours and friends.

Debi Coggins, Finance and Funding Officer, said: “It was at that point that we knew this was going to be something much bigger than we had expected.

“In the end we were absolutely overwhelmed with donations, which filled half of our cellar in Caerwent.

“The upcycle were incredibly kind and they donated their van and time to transport our stuff over to Monmouth Aid.”