Volunteers help spread Christmas joy to thousands of children across world
CALL FOR DONATIONS TO FILL TOY BOXES FOR DISADVANTAGED KIDS
GROUP of volunteers from across Derbyshire are putting together thousands of boxes of Christmas presents for disadvantaged children worldwide, and are calling for donations.
The Teams 4 U Christmas Shoebox Appeal is working with members of the Rotary Club of Derby to package around 5,000 boxes for children of all ages in Romania, Moldova, Belarus and Georgia.
It will be the only Christmas present many of them receive this year, with the boxes containing a mix of sweets, cuddly toys, toiletries, clothes and games.
Many of the devoted team of around 40 volunteers have been involved in the project since it began 30 years ago, and they work throughout the day boxing and wrapping the gifts from a small retail unit at Darley Abbey Mills.
Pat Charge, warehouse manager for the project, said: “It’s a good start to our Christmas, you feel like you’ve done something good. I’ve seen films of the children receiving the presents and it’s a worthwhile thing to do.
“Covid was awful, we were having to take people’s temperatures before they came and we all got hot and bothered as you are dashing about. It was worrying, keeping people safe. The numbers were down but we got through.
“It’s amazing to think this is the first present a child could have ever received.”
The boxes come to the retail unit from as far away as Sheffield and are checked by the volunteers to ensure everything inside is appropriate for their recipients and sorted into age categories.
Given that many of the countries are war-torn, military toys are not included, nor are religious items.
They cost £2.50 to send, which people can put inside the box for the volunteers to take out before it is repacked and shipped off in time for Christmas.
The project began in 1989 when Dave Cook, from Wrexham in Wales, saw the reality of life for many children in orphanages in countries which used to be part of the Soviet Union.
In the past, the boxes have been sent to countries including Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia, as well as African countries, although the latter has not been possible this year due to Covid complications.
The effort is helped by members of the Rotary Club of Derby and the Rotary Clubs of Ashbourne and of Belper and Duffield.
John Worthy, from Darley, is the regional organiser for the Teams 4 U charity and a member of the Rotary
Club of Derby, and believes that the effort is vitally important.
He said: “The Rotary Club meets once a week with the aim of using our energy and expertise to help those who are less fortunate than we are.
“We have a number of charities that we support every year. We look for volunteers to come and join us, and we’re always pleased to have new members. One of the charities we support is Teams 4 U which collects the shoe boxes at Christmas time. “We do the work in terms of contacting potential donors, people who we think might want to fill shoe boxes.
“So earlier in the year we contact hundreds of schools and churches and businesses and individuals and nurseries and all sorts of people, anybody that we think might want to support this, and we write to them and we invite them to take part and then hopefully when they return when they get back to us positively.
“Then we organise our members to go and collect the shoe boxes. We’ve gone as far afield this year as Sheffield to collect shoe boxes from schools, and we bring them in, bring them here in our cars and then some of us come and volunteer in the warehouse as well.
“This is what we’re there for. It means everything to us. We have a social life as well, but the main purpose for our existence is to try and help those who are less fortunate the where, whether it’s in this country or overseas.”
Covid regulations mean that only three people can be in one of the two packing rooms at any one time, with some of the thousands of boxes having already been sent abroad where they will then be sorted again before being distributed.
Volunteers do sometimes travel to help hand out the gifts at schools and community halls, but this can sometimes cost hundreds of pounds out of their own pockets.
Joyce Baldwin, from Etwall, has been helping the team for more than 15 years and says that seeing children receive a gift is hugely rewardA ing, having herself travelled to Kosovo eight years ago.
She said: “It is brilliant. These children, when we say they have nothing, they are lucky if they have got two outfits. I was there in winter, but their plastic flip flops are their shoes in winter. They cannot go to school if they don’t have writing equipment.
“Their heating is one of the big old fires that most people won’t know about but I can remember in my schools in the 1950s. Just to show how bad it is, they really wanted water so they could clean their teeth. That’s what we were asked for.
“It’s wonderful to be part of such a huge organisation. I just think it is the least I can do, to give something back into the world that we just take for granted.
“We have it so easy in England, you can’t begin to imagine. There are, of course, areas today which don’t have electricity, but some people live like that all day every day, no heat and very often no food.
“They have never had a present in their life, some of them did not even know what a present was. I just love doing it, as I can imagine the children’s reaction.”
They have never had a present in their life, some of them did not even know what a present was. Joyce Baldwin