An invitation was received from Blythswood to attend a Tea, Coffee and Cake event at the Royal Engineers Museum at Brompton on 5 April. It was a ‘thank you’ to all volunteers for their hard work, support and help with the Blythswood Care Christmas Shoe Box Appeal in 2022.
Stella and Jane Barnes represented the Soroptimists and joined with more than 50 other volunteers. It was good to hear that with everyone’s time and efforts in the South East that we sorted and packed 14,166 shoe boxes. The combined efforts of all 6 collection points across the UK resulted in more than 90,000 shoeboxes being delivered in time for Christmas.
We heard from Alan Swanson who is based in Glasgow and Head of UK Projects at Blythswood. He travelled with the convoy to Serbia to hand out shoeboxes in 2022 and this time they also sent 4 loads to Ukraine.
In each of the Eastern European countries, Blythswood reach out to communities and partners to work out where is the greatest need for shoeboxes and what other community services are needed. For the first time, Blythswood Bosnia were successful in securing significant funding (£620k) from the Disaster Emergency Committee Fund to be spent in 12 weeks that would meet local needs.
As Soroptimists our involvement has continued throughout the long winter nights as 3 members have been busy knitting snoods, scarves, hats, gloves and tissue holders suitable for women and girls. We now have 100 sets ready for when we fill shoeboxes for the 2023 Appeal in October.