When Lithgow woman Val Morris heard about packing shoe boxes with gifts for undernourished children in third world countries she immediately became a volunteer and hasn’t looked back since.
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Operation Christmas Child is a program run by the Samaritans Purse where people put gifts in shoe boxes and send them to children from third world countries.
Val Morris first heard about the project in the mid 1990’s over the radio when she was living in Glenbrook.
“Me and some friends volunteered because we worked part time, so we would just sit on the verandah and put these shoe boxes together,” she said.
When Mrs Morris moved to Lithgow she was told that she should look for a group to join so she could continue her volunteer work.
“I looked for the Operation Christmas project group but couldn’t find one in Lithgow so I decided to start my own,” she said.
Lithgow alone has contributed 1000 shoe boxes to the 35,000 that Australia donates each years.
That’s 1000 smiling children because Lithgow has put together something special,
- State manager Craig Jennings
Lithgow held an information session for new recruits where Mr Jennings attended to explain what Christmas Child was and why he believes it is a worthwhile cause.
“It’s quite easy to pack a shoe box and each one is hand delivered to the kids so we see the joy and love each child feels when they receive a box,” he said.
Mr Jennings explained that you can pack for boys or girls and the three age groups you can pack for are children between two and four, five and nine and 10 and 14.
Gift suggestions are something to wear, something to love, something special, something for school, something to play with and something for personal hygiene.
Gifts that shouldn’t be packed are items that could leak or melt, food, damaged or used items, religious material and breakable items.
Mrs Morris said that her children continue to look for items to pack even though they live in the United States.
“They’ll call me up and tell me they found something that would be great for a shoe box,” she said.
Lithgow will be hosting a packing day on Wednesday, May 16 at the Lithgow Baptist Church where like minded people can come and pack their shoe boxes together.
“Our motto is ‘come when you can, leave when you must, bring food to share for fun, food and fellowship’,” she said.
