The Grammar School for Girls Wilmington

We are pleased to announce that The Grammar School for Girls Wilmington has participated in the charity event, Love in a box for the poor children in Eastern E urope.  Love in a Box gives people a chance to fill a shoebox with gifts such as hairbrushes, combs, cuddly toys, toothbrushes & toothpaste, flannels, gloves & scarves, and lots of other gifts that make the children feel happy.

The boxes were taken to the children, aged 5-16, who might be in a hospital, an orphanage or might be part of a poor family.  For most of these children, this is the only Christmas present they get.

The main place that the boxes go to in Eastern Europe is Romania.  You cannot begin to imagine how much poverty there is in that country.  The hospitals and orphanages have lots of children who are starving and ill.

Nearly all the schools in Kent are sending in boxes for poor and needy children.  They are taken to local churches that afterwards get volunteers to drive the shoeboxes over to the children.  There could be 200-300 boxes from just one church.  The £2 that is taped on top of the boxes goes towards petrol funds because the drivers who drive the lorries are volunteers.

The children are immensely grateful to get their boxes. It is very emotional for the volunteers to watch the children open their presents.  The children get very excited over a gift we would have thought was boring and basic, like a pair of socks or a new toothbrush.  It makes you realise how lucky we are to have so little poverty here in England.

There was a girl with leukaemia who had lost her hair, who opened her shoebox gift to find hair ornaments and hairbrushes in it.  But instead of being upset, she said it would give her hope that her hair would grow long again so she could use the hair slides.

Luckily the children at our school were very generous, so there were a lot of shoeboxes this year, all beautifully wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper.