DOZENS of children were visited by Santa after initial fears Christmas would be cancelled.

The Leader previously reported how the Sealand community came together to ensure Father Christmas came to the town after it was announced an annual float would not be attending.

The grotto was originally organised by Sealand and Queensferry Memory Cafe, a voluntary cafe run for people living with dementia and their carers at St Andrews Hub.

Hayley Jones, who helps to run the cafe, said: "It was only by chance that the day after we were told the float was not going to come to Sealand, that our cafe was on at the Hub, and one of our Café user's sons came in and asked if we had a Santa we could use.

"So we asked the Hub secretary if we could hire the Hub for an hour and they were more than willing to help and even came back later on and said it was going to be free.

"My mum, Cllr Christine Jones put it on Facebook and that was it, it was just a whirlwind of offers of donations and help."

Donations from the community poured in, with children eager to meet Santa ahead of Christmas Day. Donations towards the cafe and Sealand school were optional and £120 was raised within one hour.

Hayley added: "On the day so many turned up to decorate the Hub and stayed throughout the event to help. It was just amazing and we didn't expect it to be so busy, within minutes they were queuing out of the door.

"Our community was so disappointed that the float was not coming to visit our children.

"There is good and bad in every community and our children deserve better, we have nothing in our area.

"We always get overlooked. We just wanted to give our kids some magic because they deserve every bit of it and thanks to our community we achieved it.

"I have not seen that much community spirit anywhere for a long time. I do a lot of fundraising for the Memory Cafe and Dementia Friendly Communities and never had such a fantastic response, and that's because it affected everyone because it affected our children."