A special visitor graced the waters between Calstock and Saltash last week to help raise awareness of the plight of disadvantaged children living in the UK and to support children's charity CHICKS (Country Holidays for Inner City Kids).

A specially designed Santa sleigh raft was towed down the Tamar to deliver Santa Claus to Saltash. The raft was built by young people from the Tomorrow's People 'Working It Out' programme in Plymouth, a charity set up to help individuals and communities overcome long-term unemployment.

Raising funds for CHICKS and keeping Santa afloat is their latest Challenge venture. Santa's sleigh raft will be towed by canoes manned by staff from the Working it Out programme.

Santa's sacks and his raft was laden with CHICKS kites to highlight the charity's 'Make a Memory, Fly a Kite' campaign launched this year to raise awareness of the plight of underprivileged children living in the UK.

Brentor-based CHICKS provides free respite breaks to disadvantaged children from all across the UK.

Jo Westerman, CHICKS community fundraiser, said: 'We are extremely grateful to Tomorrow's People for choosing to support our charity. With Christmas coming up, we wanted to highlight in a unique way our "Make a Memory, Fly a Kite" campaign and try to encourage as many people as possible to buy CHICKS kites as Christmas gifts.

'Christmas is a time for children and unfortunately for many of those from disadvantaged backgrounds, this time is no different from any other time of the year.'

Kites are £5.99 each and can be purchased from http://www.chicks.org.uk">www.chicks.org.uk or by calling 0845 2770120 or directly from Mountain Warehouse stores, the nearest store being in Drake's Shopping Centre, Plymouth.