ON Sunday at All Saints, John Street, Grays the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Thurrock came to see and hear about Operation Christmas Child, They were joined by Polly Billington. Over the weekend the centre had been transformed into processing centre for the Shoebox appeal. Over 70 volunteers were involved over the weekend checking the 2000 plus shoe boxes to ensure they had the right sort of gifts. Several supermarkets were cleared out of children’s toothpaste.
A short service of thanks giving was held in All Saints Introduced by Andrew Blakey. John Dell explained the work of Operation Christmas Child . he then showed some video clips of the impact these presents have and the service culminated with Golden Voices singing.
John Dell who has been involved in running the Thurrock Operation Christmas Child has a dream of l completely loading a lorry of 8000 boxes and the flying out to where they will sent to help with the distribution. John and Gary Jones have been out in Kosovo previous when a lorry arrived, but John wants to see the whole journey from picking up boxes in a school, checking them and then seeing them delivered to needy children. This year John and Gary took their whole families, 4 adults and six children to Kosovo, they took out 30 suitcases of goods to help people and for 25 euros could buy a food parcel for a family of six for a month, though not the level of food we may enjoy.
Sad to say someone tried to break in to All Saints late on Saturday night to steal from the presents being processed.
This was the first of two weekend processing shoe boxes. The next is 5th to 7th of December. If you would like to donate a box it should contains these five categories:- Education (colouring pencils, sharpener, rubber paper etc), Hygiene (soap, flannel, toothpaste, tooth brush), Warmth (hat, scarf, gloves), Treats (sweets but no chocolate), and Gifts suitable for a Girl or a Boy. You can bring filled shoe boxes or gifts to Treasure Children Forever nursery in John Street Grays.
