Stories from volunteers
‘The warehouses are like Father Christmas's grotto!'
Jacquie Norton-Shaw lives near Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and has helped at various nearby warehouses for the last four years. Jacquie first discovered OCC through a leaflet in her local library.
The work brought back memories: as a teenager she'd been shocked by similar poverty in Mexico . So Jacquie began doing shoe boxes, and as a Brown Owl, soon had her Brownies doing them as well.
Then one day Jacquie decided to visit the local warehouse. “I felt I'd stepped into Father Christmas's grotto,” she says. “I thought WOW!! The bustling and joy and sense of purpose in getting these presents ready for children was just magical. I knew then I just had to be involved.” Jacquie has a great love for children, and all year round, “I am constantly on the lookout for things I can send.”
Now as the warehouse time of year approaches, Jacquie can hardly wait. “I just love being there, and thinking of all the joy that we can send to children so far away. “Every bar of soap you send, every toy you buy,will mean that one more child has that gift. We can only send out what people send in, so quite literally, if you don't do it for that child, no one else will. Each hat you knit and send will mean one less child going cold. I find that a challenge to do all that I possibly can.
“The teams in the warehouse have a lovely camaraderie.We share our skills, from putting ribbons on teddy bears (my specialty) to driving the trucks.” < top
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Why Margaret spends her holidays in a warehouse
Margaret Parry lived a life in south Liverpool that was entirely shoe box free until one day in 1992 her son came home from school and dumped a leaflet on the kitchen table. “Mum, I need everything on this list. Now.”
She looked at him – and it – in astonishment.“Whatever for?” “I want to do a shoe box,” he announced. “And what,”Margaret enquired, “is a shoe box?” Then she read the leaflet, and was touched at the idea of helping a child in need. So she went shopping, and helped her son to do the requested shoe box. When her Mothers'Union at St Anne's Aigburth heard about it, they wanted to help. So in 1993 they made up 20 boxes.
By 2003 this was 350 shoe boxes. By then Margaret was helping to run the satellite warehouse in south Liverpool.Her husband Jeffrey, who is disabled, helps check the hoe boxes, “which is great,” says Margaret. “God has never let my husband and I down. This is our way of thanking him.” Margaret works part-time in the IT industry, and so takes two weeks of her holiday each year during the warehouse run. “If you've never been to a warehouse, what are you waiting for? Get down to your nearest one, and try it out. I guarantee you will meet some great-hearted people. You can also be sure that every single thing you do will directly help a child in deep need.”
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In his 80s – and still packing 25,000 shoe boxes a year
Over the years, Jim's specialty has become packing the large cartons with the sealed shoe boxes. In this way, it has been reckoned that Jim packs up to 25,000 shoe boxes each year. While his wife was alive, she and Jim used to fill shoe boxes of their own. Since her death, Jim visits the market and buys various items in bulk to help others in filling their shoe boxes.
So what makes a man in his 80s give up four days a week throughout the warehouse weeks each autumn? Jim could be at home pursuing some hobby, or out meeting his friends. “I love the knowledge that I am doing something which will make a real difference to somebody else, especially a child,” Jim says. “I love being in the warehouse, and I always recommend this work to others, because of the satisfaction that you get.”
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“Don't retire and just fade away!” |
Peter Allinson of Stockport, near Manchester , first got involved in the warehouses about three years ago, after he and his wife had retired from their fish and chip shop in Stockport . “I intended to go only for a few days, but then I just got drawn in. There were many women helpers, and they really needed some men to do the heavier jobs, like unpacking the vans and shifting the pallets around. So I did that.”
Peter has helped for up to four days a week for three weeks each year ever since. “The atmosphere in a warehouse is great – there is always a brew on the go and some biscuits, and such an atmosphere of goodwill. “Since I've retired I've learned that it is important to keep busy – otherwise you're in danger of just fading away. It is far better to put your time into doing something useful, and to keep out of the house, among people.Helping in the warehouse is a great help to me personally – it provides some great friends.
“I would say to anyone else who is retired: Don't sit at home and grow old. Get out there and keep busy! If you have nothing to do, go and find a friend, and take them along to your nearest warehouse. Get packing!”
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“Do it for them – and you do it for God – even just sharpening pencils!” |
Joan Frobisher lives in Maghull, near Liverpool . She helps in the warehouse near the docks. Since she retired as a youth leader for the Liverpool Youth Music Centre, she has turned her great love for young people into her work for OCC. Joan first heard of OCC about nine years ago through her church, Aintree Village Family Church . “So some of us went down to help in the warehouse, and were hooked! “The big draw for me has always been the thought that in doing shoe boxes I am doing things for the Lord.Matthew 25 reminds us that what we do for one of the least of these, we do for Him.”
Five years ago Joan became a volunteer representative for OCC. She now travels all over the area early each autumn, talking to church groups, youth groups and schools. The younger pupils have great fun in helping her to fill a shoe box with them there and then in the assembly. The teenagers can be just as responsive, often giving up hours of their time to come and help.
The OCC campaign is now a fixture in the Frobishers' diary.“My husband and I put aside six weeks of every autumn for the campaign.” It took breast cancer to slow Joan down for a year, but soon she was back, as enthusiastic as ever.
“Without my faith I would not have got through the cancer, and this is one way I can say thank you to God.” Joan would strongly encourage anyone to seriously consider getting involved this year. “It does not matter how little you think you can offer – some of our helpers do nothing but sharpen pencils and roll writing paper up into tubes all day – but they save us hours of work that way. “If you can't even do that, please pray for us! Prayer is a powerful tool, and we can't do without it.”
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Squeezing in that 136th shoe box |
Heather Robinson was first introduced to shoe boxes when she stayed in the ‘wrong bedroom'. “My best friend usually puts me up in her twin-bedded guest room, but this time it was her tiny box room. I didn't mind, but I was curious as to why?
“My friend just led me to the usual big room and flung open the door.I was shocked! Shoe boxes! They were stacked everywhere – on the beds, the floor, the dressing table. I couldn't believe it.” Heather's friend was acting as a drop off point for one of the local churches. That night she told Heather all about the project. Back in Dartmouth , south Devon ,Heather felt very excited. “I was 64 and retired.My husband was gone,my children were grown, and I had been praying about what God wanted me to do with my time. I have so much energy, and such a love for people, I could not bear to sit at home and just grow old. I knew at once that shoe boxes were right for me, too.” So that same year, in 1999,Heather rapidly packed two shoe boxes, and sent them off. By the next year,Heather had volunteered and become a Registered Volunteer with Samaritan's Purse. “I decided to start small, and build as I went along.” So in 2000 she visited three schools, four churches, lots of people – and collected 278 shoe boxes. By 2005 Heather had added many more churches, people and schools, and collected 2842 boxes. “
This year I am aiming for 3000!” Heather's house is transformed for the annual shoe box run. “I drag the furniture out of the two spare bedrooms into the third spare bedroom. That leaves me two rooms entirely free – for stacking shoe boxes from floor to ceiling, wall to wall.” Each autumn, Heather does about 1000 miles in her car. “From September to the end of November I am out every day at some church or group or school or other. When there is no time for lunch, I take along a marmite sandwich and the flask.
“I've learned that my car will hold me,my handbag and up to 136 shoe boxes. I've tried to get 137 in, but it won't work. So 136 it is.When I am full, I have to head for home, to unload them all. Why does Heather fight all the odds of advancing age and a much-needed hip replacement, just to collect shoe boxes for youngsters she will never even meet? “During the Second World War when I was seven, I was sent away to Cardiff . The woman in the new family beat me. For 18 months I thought I was all alone, with no one left to care for me. All I had, as far as I knew, was my teddy bear. “I will never forget the fear and bewilderment and ache in my heart to have someone reach out and show me some love. “In the end, I was able to go back to my parents, but for millions of children in Eastern Europe and Africa , there is no home to go back to – ever. They have been abandoned forever. I have had a glimmer of the desolation they feel, and I cannot bear the thought of it.”
Every year when the new OCC video comes out, it makes Heather cry. “The day I don't cry, I will know I have lost my compassion for children.” She adds: “The biggest benefit I can think of in doing this work is that I know God wants me to do it.What a privilege!
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Desperate housewife? Not down at the warehouse! |
Jan Williams is a housewife in her 40s from Woodford Green in Essex , and she can fit the annual shoe box run into her daily schedule.
“I just set aside a regular time each week throughout the year to help out at the warehouse,” she explains. “It doesn't interfere with my family commitments or evenings.” Jan had done shoe boxes for years before she discovered the warehouse work. A friend at church had been to the Ukraine with Samaritan's Purse, and returned with stories of great need. Soon Jan was involved. “I took some things down to the warehouse, for them to send out to the Ukraine .
Soon I was visiting each Wednesday,my mother joined me, and it became a weekly commitment for us.” Through her visits to the warehouse Jan soon learned about the shoe boxes… “and now during the warehouse weeks, I pop in whenever I am able. Lots of us younger people do it that way – we give as we can, and it is great. Nobody expects us to do the impossible time-wise.
“We'll never meet the children for whom we work so hard, but God does.He sees, and He is pleased. And so are the children! “Each one of us, no matter what we do in life, can give something, and that something will make all the difference to the life of a child somewhere.”
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Seven minutes to cover a shoe box |
Carrie Coles attends a chapel in Llantwit Fardre, South Wales , where she heard that the nearest warehouse, at Talbot Green, needed help. “Soon I was hooked.” Carrie and her husband enjoy taking coach trip holidays around the country.
“Wherever we go, I take my knitting along, and soon the whole coach knows about the shoe boxes. I even ask them to save their hotel guest soaps at each of the hotels we stop at – and soon I've got dozens of sweet little soaps for my Christmas shoe boxes! “One man from our warehouse was on holiday and met a young man who had actually received a shoe box as a child growing up in Eastern Europe.
The young man said that receiving that shoe box all those years ago made him realise that someone in the world cared about him. It had stayed with him all those years! “If you sow such love into children's lives, you will receive it back to yourself.” In the meantime, by early summer Carrie already had 100 shoe boxes stowed away in the loft. “I can cover one in seven minutes flat,” she observes, with quiet satisfaction. |
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