A charity is busy packing festive cheer for children, reports Sarah Hickinbotham EVERY winter, thousands of people across the Vale and Cotswolds rise to the challenge of bringing happiness into the lives of children affected by poverty and hardship.

The 2010 appeal for Operation Christmas Child (OCC) is now well underway and more than 9,000 wrapped shoeboxes filled with goodies have already been kindly donated by people in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.

At this time of year, the area distribution centre in Evesham is a hive of activity.

An army of volunteers is busily filling boxes, checking towers of brightly coloured parcels and packing them ready for distribution to children in countries including Swaziland and Kyrgyzstan.

A group of pupils from St Andrews School in Hampton arrive to drop off their offering of 40 shoeboxes.

Headteacher David Coache said it was something they looked forward to doing every year.

“They come along and have a look around and see where their charity is going,” he said.

“They love it. We play a video to them about OCC and do an assembly. They’re really keen to help.”

In a corner of the warehouse, a group of women are working their way through rows of boxes stacked on long work benches.

Mary Jones, who has volunteered for OCC for the past six years and helps to run the Davies Road operation, said checking the donations was an important stage of the process.

“We can’t send liquids or sharp things, unless, for example, they’re part of a sewing kit, or anything of a religious nature.

“We have guidelines for what can be sent, but some people come up with quite imaginative things. I went to Serbia two or three years ago and one child found a collection of postcards of different countries. She just went over and over them.”

Mary added while many people choose to give pre-filled boxes, others help prepare gifts to be used as fillers.

She said: “People are very generous. We put shoe bags in because the boxes don’t last forever and these are handmade. We get lots of donations of knitted things and pencils and stationery, which is really important because there are some countries where children can’t go to school unless they have their own stationery.

“The nice thing about OCC is it’s a project that all ages can take part in. In a project like this, there’s something for everybody to do.”

Members of local WIs, school children and sixth formers are among the volunteers helping to get OCC in Evesham off the ground this year.

In the packing area, helping to prepare a wall of brown boxes full of Christmas gifts is retired contracts manager Bob Title.

He said: “This is my first morning. I decided to volunteer because I’ve got spare time on my hands as I’m retired. What I like about it is we’re getting presents out for Christmas to children who need them.”

Assisting in the checking bay, Chris Rhodes – a volunteer of seven years – said the work of OCC was very important to the children it helped.

“I’m sure it makes a tremendous difference,” she said.

“Some of these children are living in really ramshackle places. My daughter was teaching in Romania at a school which had a connection with an orphanage.

“It happened while she was there the children were receiving shoeboxes and they just loved it.”

The volunteers’ work will culminate in an official send-off of donations from the warehouse on Sunday, December 5 at 2.30pm.

Over the past 20 years, the largest children’s Christmas project in the world has brought joy into the lives of more than 80 million children worldwide, and 2009 saw more than 500,000 people across the UK get involved.

There is still time to donate a shoebox to the 2010 Operation Christmas Child appeal or items such as toiletries and mittens, which can be dropped off at the warehouse next to Jewson from 10am to 4pm and 6.30pm to 9.30pm on Monday to Friday and 10am to 2pm on Saturdays. Boxes can be submitted until Saturday, December 4. For more details, see operationchristmaschild.org.uk.