Santa Shoeboxes hope to bring cheer to children after 2 years of Covid-19
By now, most North Coast residents will be familiar with the Santa Shoebox Project, an organisation that distributes personalised gifts and essential items to underprivileged children throughout South Africa and Namibia.
It is Santa Shoebox time again and given the context of the last 2 years, brightening a child’s Christmas has seldom been so important.
By now, most North Coast residents will be familiar with the Santa Shoebox Project, an organisation that distributes personalised gifts and essential items to underprivileged children throughout South Africa and Namibia.
More than a million children have been reached since the project began in 2004 and continues to grow each year.
Charmaine Kotze has recently taken over as the coordinator for Ballito and is excited to take on the challenge of reaching as many children as possible.
“I have worked with the Santa Shoebox Project for 8 years and just love the work that is done. It is even more important this year, so we are really trying to hit our targets,” she said.
Although Ballito does not have a big population, it ranks as one of the biggest contributors to the project.
“We have such a charitable, wonderful community. For example, Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) aims for 500 boxes pledged while we try to hit 2 000.”
If you would like to donate a box, you can pledge one on the project website.
If you would like to donate but are unable to make a drop-off point, you can can also pledge a virtual shoebox on the website which gets packed by the Santa Shoebox team.
This year, the Santa Shoebox team are making a specific plea to also keep teenagers in mind when pledging a box.
“People always donate to the young children first, which is great, but those boxes go quickly. We donate to all children that are under 18, so please consider pledging to a teenager instead this year.”
The only local physical donation spot this year is at Crawford International North Coast, which is the catchment area for most of the North Coast.
Other locations are in Richard’s Bay and Umhlanga.
The drop-off point at the school will be open between 28-30 October, from 8am to 4pm on Thursday and Friday and 8am to 2pm on the Saturday.
For more information on what needs to go into the box and how to pack it, visit https://santashoebox.org.za/.
To pledge a box for Ballito, select Ballito as the location under the pledge section of the page.
To contact Charmaine directly, you can email her at charmaine@santashoebox.org or call her at 082 847 4303.
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