ABC of OCC - J

The team at Wrexham preparing a load in 2009

J is for journey. The 2010 shoeboxes are on their way from warehouses across the UK; the first load left Melksham bound for Liberia on 12th November.

To prepare the shoeboxes for their journey they are checked and sealed with special Samaritan's Purse tape and carefully packed into cartons. Each carton has the same category of shoebox that is, Boy or Girl in one of the age categories. This information is put on the outside so that our partners overseas can easily identify what the carton contains. This method has been developed over the many years of consulting our partners about what works best for them.

Each load is around 10,000 shoeboxes and strong and able bodied volunteers gather at the warehouses to ensure that the load is packed to ensure the maximum number of shoeboxes are on board - for this reason we don't use pallets as they take up too much valuable space. Paperwork is a vital part of this process so that what is on the truck matched what is on the manifest to ensure smooth passage through customs. Some are put in containers - these are bound for the further flung places such as Swaziland. There is a celebratory feeling as the volunteers load the finished product - always the result of many months hard work.

The shoebox's journey is long and it may take 4 or 5 days to reach a country in Eastern Europe and even longer for a container to get overseas. But they all get there and waiting for them at the other end is an anxious partner ready to deliver them straight into the waiting hands of needy children in his beloved country.