What a response to the 2020 Shoebox Appeal!
With the uncertainty as to whether the appeal could go ahead earlier in the year with the pandemic and after the national collection week was put back due to lockdown #2, we were finally able to be that “church collection centre” that we had put ourselves forward for and Portholme opened its doors for a week in December.
A willing band of volunteers turned up every morning to receive any shoeboxes from the general public which seemed to mean that the last 15 minutes were always the busiest with big donations being brought in on two of the days.
A particular highlight was two little sisters coming in with their shoeboxes on Saturday morning and jumping up and down with excitement when they got a certificate — their Mum was so proud of them.
We also had another Mum say “what a lovely church, I always forget that you’re here”
The final count is a whopping 203 shoeboxes which were packed into 20 large boxes and collected by the charity on 16 December.
To put this into perspective we collected about 40 boxes last year — massive thanks to everyone who helped out and also to all of you who either donated boxes or donated money to Operation Christmas Child