The Shoebox Collection - part 2

 We dropped our completed shoeboxes off on Monday, and heard such a heart-warming story that I wanted to share it here with you.

The lady who collects the local shoeboxes here is Sheila.

Most years she hires a van for four weeks, and with her husband they visit the local schools or churches to pick up the shoeboxes before they are then collected by the charity.  (This year is different, obviously.)

A few years ago, a local church contacted Sheila and arranged for her to call and collect their boxes.  The church warden apologised to Shelia that they only had 50 boxes for her to collect, but that as a congregation of 25 they had managed to make two boxes each over the year.  

Sheila told the church warden that 5 or 50 boxes - any donation was wonderful.

The day before she was due to collect, the church warden phoned her again, and asked if she was coming in a van.

Sheila said that she was, indeed, coming in a van.

The church warden told her that they had an additional 104 boxes!

Sheila said thank you very much, and the church warden then told her that these 104 boxes had come from one person!!

The man who had donated these boxes was a pensioner and was house-bound.

Each week throughout the year he had added the contents of two shoeboxes to his shopping list for a carer to buy on his behalf.  Then he had wrapped each box and it was placed in his spare room.

So over the year - 52 weeks - he had put together 104 shoeboxes!

This chap chose a different charity to support each year and then went all-out to raise and donate for that charity.

I wanted to share this lovely story with you, and I hope it restores your faith in humanity as it did mine.

Take care,

Tracey xx