Local people and organisations are busy filling shoeboxes

AN EXAMPLE of the local shoebox effort comes from Westbury United Reformed Church. A few members of the church spent a pleasant evening recently, filling 40 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.

One of the organisers Priscilla Gray said, “We have a system which works for us. Members are invited to provide different items each month; one month it could be face cloths, the next toothpaste and another month it will be pens and pencils.

“A couple of our members do a lot of beautiful knitting and another provides small cloth bags for the children to put their treasures in after the boxes are finished with.

“We were so moved one year to learn that one child had taken the paper off her box and put it on her wall as she did not have any wallpaper, that we now put a sheet of wrapping paper in each box.

“We enjoy doing this and are getting expert at finding bargains!”