More than 1,000 Easter eggs will be distributed to children through the efforts of Cheyenne O’Connor, who organised the donations.
Miss O’Connor, who has been nominated three times for a JEP Pride of Jersey Community Champion of the Year Award, is known for her work in raising awareness of sexual abuse in the Island and supporting the victims. She has also received praise for her commitment to catching paedophiles by posing as someone under age on dating apps.
Miss O’Connor also initiates numerous community projects, but, like everyone else, she has been hampered by the Covid-19
crisis.
‘Every year I try to organise family fun days, but I’ve not been able to this last year,’ said Miss O’Connor.
‘But at Christmas I organised a toy donation and then I posted about the Easter eggs on Facebook and 17 local businesses and people got involved and donated money and eggs.
‘I only aimed for 700 and we got just over 1,000 eggs.
‘I’m very happy with the donations and how generous and kind everyone has been.’
Half of the thousand Easter eggs will be distributed to local charities such as Brightly, the Women’s Refuge, Barnardo’s, Brighter Futures and the NSPCC.
The other 500 Easter eggs were delivered by Miss O’Connor to Mark Owers at the offices of the government’s Children, Young People, Education and Skills Department at Liberty House in La Motte Street, for distribution to vulnerable youngsters.
Mr Owers, director of children’s safeguarding and care at CYPES, thanked Miss O’Connor for organising the initiative and the local businesses for the donations.
‘It’s a wonderful initiative and we’re very grateful for the donations and to Cheyenne for organising it,’ said Mr Owers. ‘We’ll be distributing the Easter eggs through family support workers, social workers, our staff in children’s homes and foster carers. We would like to develop initiatives like this more and to work with local children and to connect with the local community.’
