School helps to fill Santa Shoeboxes
Donors who don't live close to a Santa Shoebox drop-off zone can make their pledges on-line.
THE heartwarming Santa Shoebox Project has been collecting festive season gifts for children from vulnerable social backgrounds in orphanages, children’s homes and care centres for the past eight years.
Hibberdene Academy pupils have collected their items which will soon be handed out to 150 children.
This years theme is ‘KISS – Keep it Sustainable, Santa’.
Pupils at Hibberdene Academy were on the ball and started early in the year by bringing boxes and decorating them themselves.
Each month pupils were asked to bring one of the items needed, starting with facecloths, then soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and so on, and made them the biggest corporate donor on the South Coast.
Allison Keys, coordinator of Santa Shoebox on the South Coast, said the project has grown on the Hibiscus Coast since 2011.
“We started with 185 children and this year we are hopefully giving 445 children boxes. As of Tuesday morning this week there were only six boxes left on the list to do. The six remaining are all teenage boys who are still in need of donors,” she said.
This year, courtesy of an innovative new partnership with Checkers, a new Virtual Box option will be introduced for the first time, allowing donors who don’t live close to any of the Santa Shoebox drop-off zones to make their pledges on-line.
Kind-hearted supporters will also have the option to donate proudly South African raincoats, to children who live in high winter rainfall areas, to keep them dry on their way to school every day.
As a third new way to get involved in the Santa Shoebox Project this year, corporate clients and other benefactors are invited to make a financial donation towards the new Santa Shoebox Legacy fund that will provide additional support to children’s facilities.
All of these options can be easily done via the new Santa Shoebox website, www.santashoebox.org.
Drop-off zone is at the Wesley Hall, Methodist Church in Reynolds Street, Port Shepstone this Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25, from 8am to 4pm.
For more details contact Allison Keys at 082 3783333 or Neldri Rabe at 084 7735559.
