Shoebox Appeal 2007
In 2007 schools, churches, clubs and thousands of individuals once again donated over 140,000 filled shoeboxes to the Blythswood Care Shoebox Appeal. These gifts brought much joy to the children and adults who received them. Over the last five years we have distributed over 500,000 boxes.
Please
click here to see how many shoeboxes Blythswood has sent since the first Shoe Box Appeal in 1993. We delivered shoeboxes in Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, Ukraine and Moldova. We took boxes to India for the second year running; in 2007 a total of 22,631 shoeboxes were distributed in India.
To read a report on our Chief Executive’s visit to India in January 2008 please
click here During December, Danny Muschate visited homes, orphanages, projects and schools in Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania to see first hand the distribution of the shoeboxes and also to record the event so that we can release a new Shoebox Appeal DVD for 2008.
Here are some of his thoughts from his visit.
Bulgaria
I visited a gypsy village that I had previously been to in May 2006. Our partners The Trussell Trust work in this village. The houses are made of brick, corrugated sheets and pieces of board. Each ‘house’ consists of one room where the whole family live. The village had deteriorated since I had last been there. One family took us into their house and opened some of their boxes. The lady of the family was overjoyed and said that the best item for her was the shampoo. She showed us the empty bottles from previous boxes that she keeps on a shelf.
Serbia
I visited some families living in very basic accommodation. These families are displaced Kosovan nationals who live in really sub standard conditions; some in a converted hall where they live in small partitioned off units and some in rooms in an abandoned public building. It was a very cold day and there was only one stove to heat the whole hall where 20 families live. In all cases, there was a real air of joy and expectation when we delivered the boxes and as people took their boxes to their own units or corners of the room it was very moving to see them open the boxes and experience the excitement as they opened their gifts.
Albania
Lots of good visits here but the most eye-opening one was where we visited three individual families each in a different village. The first house was quite odd. It was built of brick and had two rooms with doors and one large entrance room that only had three walls and was absolutely freezing. When we arrived the mother of the family was washing some clothes outside in a bowl with cold water from a hose. When we shook hands they were very cold. The children were wide-eyed when they saw the contents of their boxes.
Another of the families lived in a one roomed house. They dragged a table to the door to open their boxes as it was too dark to film inside. The mother was really overjoyed at her box. She has five children, one of whom is married. She opened a small parcel within her box and was moved to find a necklace. She said that she had never owned a necklace and would give this one to her married daughter. All of these families were poorly dressed for the weather conditions at the time.
I also visited the God Loves Albania project. It was a good visit. There were many young people there and we were able to give out the boxes and talk to them as they opened them. There was lots of excitement. Many of the young people, teenagers and young adults are physically or mentally disabled. The majority have no family and only know the home staff and residents as their family. Lots of hats and gloves were tried on. I met Hermes, the boy found abandoned in a cow shed as a baby. He loved the gloves especially as his hands get sore turning the wheels of his chair. He was overjoyed to show me the small section of building that is being turned into a self-contained house for him and a visiting ‘mother’ who sponsors him. I also met and had a chat with Ilir who was featured in our Newspaper BN25. He too was very pleased with the gloves as he is out in all weather trying to walk further and further to strengthen the muscles in his legs. Both of these boys praised God in their conversation for all that He has done for them.
Please note that a new Shoe Box DVD based on the distribution of the boxes in 2007 will be available for the 2008 Shoe Box Appeal
