LISA’S CAUSE FOR KIDS
TARANAKI ELF CO-ORDINATOR FOR SHOEBOX CHRISTMAS LISA SOUTHALL (34)
Santa’s gained a Taranaki helper
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The idea is pretty simple really – it’s Christmas presents, wrapped in a shoebox, for kids who could do with a smile on Christmas Day.
I got involved after a friend did a couple of boxes for the Wellington initiative, which Pera Barrett, a Porirua dad, started about five years ago. I thought it was such a cool idea I wanted to do it in our community.
My sister-in-law, Letitia, was keen as well, so we started a Facebook page outlining what we were doing and asking people to sign up to donate a gift box. Before we knew it, we had hundreds of people signed up. Our original goal was just to do one kindy!
That first year, 2016, we ended up doing shoeboxes for 1200 kids. We went to one of the school assemblies where they gave them out and it was amazing! The kids were so excited and pumped when they were given the gifts and we could see the teachers were really stoked for them too.
People who sign up can pick how many boxes they’d like to do and this year you could also request a certain age or gender.
Once I’ve collected all the details from the recipients, the donors get matched with someone to buy for and are emailed details of the child − first name, age, gender and sometimes their interests. We ask that they buy something to read, treasure, eat and for health/hygiene to put in a child’s shoebox.
The donor has a couple of months to do their shopping before dropping it all off at designated places in the first two weeks of November. We have an amazing local moving company, Impact Movers, who got in touch with us the first year and offered to pick up and deliver the gifts. They’ve done that ever since.
We give ourselves a couple of weeks to sort the presents and organise any forgotten or last-minute ones, and then they get delivered to the tamariki. Some of the gifts are opened at the school or kindy, while others are sent home with the whanau for the children to open on Christmas Day.
People put incredible thought and effort into them. We’ve had kids draw really beautiful pictures and stick them on – some people wrap all the gifts that go inside them as well.
Shoebox has definitely become a bit of a family affair. My husband Pete (34) helps with the sorting and the kids − James (5), Logan (3) and Jessica (1) − love picking presents for the boxes we do.
Christmas has always been a big family day. We’d get together with any extended family that were around − being farmers, it was usually lunch so everyone could go home to milk! This Christmas it will be Santa sacks at home for our three, then into my auntie and uncle’s for a family Christmas with my cousins, who are all home from overseas, then dinner at my in-laws with the kids’ cousins.
I’m motivated by the fact that lots of children on our doorstep are living in poverty and that sucks. I think we can do better for our kids. One shoebox gift moment that really sticks in my mind is about a 14-year-old boy who, when he opened his, burst into tears because it was the first Christmas present he'd ever had... that’s why I’m doing this.
Wouldn’t it be cool if no child missed out on a
Christmas pressie?”
As told to Julie Jacobson