With Christmas on its way, McDonald's restaurants in Dunfermline and South Queensferry are gearing up for the busy festive season. As well as providing much needed sustenance, staff and customers are pulling out all the stops to help bring joy to those in need in the lead up to Christmas.

Franchisee Adam Buchanan-Smith, who employs around 300 members of staff at his restaurants at Fife Leisure Park, Asda Halbeath and South Queensferry, said they are keen to contribute to the local community.

"We are currently doing the Christmas Mission Appeal in conjunction with Forth One radio, and we are collecting toys and presents for disadvantaged children in the Dunfermline restaurants," he explained.

"That is going well and picking up a bit of momentum. Customers' generosity is always amazing for these types of things. It is a nice thing to be able to do and it is going down well with the customers."

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The appeal is just one of the ways the restaurants have been contributing to charity; since the introduction of the government's bag tax, Adam's franchises have raised around £100,000 through the levy on paper bags.

"Businesses are entitled to do with that money what they see fit, and we put our money towards the construction costs of the new Ronald McDonald House in Edinburgh. In Scotland, McDonald's restaurants, customers, staff and suppliers have supported Ronald McDonald House Charities UK for many years and collectively the bag tax has raised over £2.5m to build the new facility and that is pretty impressive. They built a 25-bedroom house at the new hospital which provides accommodation to keep families close to their children at the hospital..

I know the hospital is not open yet, but the house is ready to go when it does."

Ronald McDonald House Charities UK was founded 30 years ago and, in this time, has supported nearly 50,000 families. The charity provides free 'home away from home' accommodation for families so that they can be moments away from their child undergoing specialist hospital care.

The run up to Christmas means that the 24-hour drive-thru facility at Fife Leisure Park getting increasingly busy and staff are on hand to ensure that workers are able to get food at their convenient location.

"It is quite a busy overnight business," said Adam. "On a Friday and Saturday, we will have 25 people working and it is a busy part of the business supporting the night-time economy. We support local workers - shift workers from Amazon, Queen Margaret Hospital, taxi drivers, police working overnight.

"It gets busier at this time of year. More people are travelling, and the fulfilment centres are going into 24-hour shift patterns, so people are looking for something to eat and that works for us."

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Despite such a busy time, staff find time to carry out litter patrols around their restaurants and are even members of the CleanFerry group which aims to keep South Queensferry clean and litter free.

Involvement in the community is something Adam is keen to sustain all year round and over the past four years, the franchise has hosted three football festivals - in Rosyth, Dalgety Bay and South Queensferry - which has brought hundreds of youngsters together to get a taste of the sport.