A PRIMARY school pupil has been using her Christmas holidays to adapt the traditional advent calendar in order to help a food bank.

Freya Heeley, four, and her mother Lyndsay Gray organised a ‘reverse advent calendar’ throughout December, where Freya’s every act of good behaviour earned an item of food for King’s Storehouse food bank in Rhyl.

Lyndsay said: “The idea was purely to spread a little kindness. I am extremely proud of Freya. I think it’s important to teach people from a young age that even if you don’t have much, kindness goes a long way.

“The fact my daughter loves to help others and I figured with children getting so over excited near Christmas, I could adapt it to help reward her for good behaviour.”

For every day that Freya displayed good manners, helped her mum around the house or did well in school, she would receive spare change from her mum to buy an item of food to fill up their donation box.

Her mum added: “As soon as she saw items going into the box, this gave her further momentum to be well behaved to earn more.

“I explained to her the process and that some people sometimes suffer hard times through no fault of their own and she was happy to help.

“She become very excited about the whole concept and proudly told lots of people she come across what she was doing.

“There was only one day I think during December she did misbehave and didn’t earn her pennies, which didn’t impress her!”

Lyndsay and Freya took the full box of food donations to a drop off point at Mace News, on Trellewelyn Road, before they were donated to the King’s Storehouse.

Lyndsay said: “I’ve never personally needed to use a food bank, but I know of people who have had to for all kinds of different reasons, and being a single full-time working mother myself know how difficult it can be at this time of year. It might not have been a massive contribution but it all helps.”

“Freya was really proud when I asked her how it made her feel donating. She said it made her feel happy and that she wanted to cry because she was really proud of herself – and naturally I am too.”

Richard Kendrick, owner of Mace News, said: “It really melts your heart, seeing children who want to be involved in charity off their own back. It just goes to show how great a town Rhyl is for community spirit.”