Being of a limited income, a few years ago I settled on one charity to play with. Since I love making parcels, the shoe-box one (via Operation Christmas Child) seemed pretty tailor made for me.
Actually this year is the first in a while I haven’t done a bundle of my own – not sure what I have been doing with my time, but for me its the kind of thing you need to be vaguely working on all year – picking up suitable items at throw-out prices. Too stressful and expensive to do it in a rush… so I have sensibly ‘let it go’ this year.
For those of you not familiar, a shoe box is packed for a boy or girl of one of three age groups – 2-4 years, 5-9 years and 10-14 years old. Each box is to contain something to love, something for school, something for personal hygiene, something to play with and something to wear… along with other special bits and pieces. They are then shipped out to children in poor/remote areas who possibly have never had something new in their lives.
Australia & New Zealand tend to send them out to places like Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Thailand, Vietnam…
While I am not part of any of the local churches (schools and other community groups do them as well as individuals) I like to go and help pack them up. A couple of weeks ago I went to Ruby’s church where they had about 120 boxes decorated and ready to pack with items they had collected all year.
Yesterday, Shirley from the Baptist church (and local OCC Co-ordinater) called me asking if I could lend another pair of hands!
Sure – since we are still getting drowned out there I couldn’t see me playing in the garden! 🙂
Afterwards I ducked into Ruby’s for a cuppa and a confession – I bought her a raised garden bed for her strawberries!! I think I may have gotten away with that, but let me save the story for Ruby Tuesday!
As I mentioned… the weather is not letting up at all. The river flooded again and the ocean is a dirty muddy colour due to the runoff into the river flooding the mouth.
Maybe tomorrow we can catch a break in the weather??
Cheers!
We do Operation Christmas Child as well! We take our kids to the store to pick out items for a few boxes. It’s a fun to think about what the different kids would like and it’s good for my kids to be appreciative of what they have.
Cool!! Its way fun to choose and pack the boxes! And its an eye opener for kids to think that this little box of ‘stuff’ is possibly the only present a child has ever had. I will get back into doing my own next year 🙂