Today (and tomorrow) is Santa Shoebox drop off day at my venue.  I was using the Durbanville Cape Town drop off for my boxes.

I looked at the site earlier to check where the numbers were sitting:

Total kids:  95 319

Boxes pledged: 10 187

which is really great news – now is just to hope that everyone who pledged gets their boxes on time to the right venue.  Wrong venue means there is a child that does not get his or her box, so definitely double-check that before you leave the house.

I arrived today – the place was easy to find – the site gave great directions.  Parking plentiful.  A friendly co-ordinator asked if she could help me carry.

I said :”er no, I should be fine….” She insisted and brought another co-ordinator and, we carried our 10 boxes inside from my car.

They were so organised, a quick scan into the system, and then a “thank you, they are beautiful” and I was sent on my way.

I was really pleased to be part of the Santa Shoebox Project this year.

I can’t say I had fun wrapping the boxes, as I remembered on box one that I actually HATE wrapping presents/books – so I decided to use the white boxes I had and write on them, draw squiggles and stick things on.  I liked that part.

I was really happy with the boxes when they were done.

There are 10 more kids getting gifts this year than there were last year.  This project has at the same time made me immensely sad.  That bitter-sweet sad, where you cry, but smile at the same time.  I know it is all great and and and … but it shows you in a rather profound way how fortunate your children are, versus so many kids in South Africa.

Hats off to how well this project has been organised.

I love the “no shit” tone of the website – here’s your list, here is how you pack, this is where you drop them off – yes, that is all.

I was a bit of a dope and did not take pictures of my boxes – they lay in my lounge for long enough, you would have thought I could have spared a moment and taken a few photographs, but sadly no, of course that realisation became apparent as I was handing them over to the lovely ladies in the aprons this morning.

I only took photos of these two girl boxes, as I left them behind today.

I used little foam shapes on the boxes, some flat sheets for colour, then I used a permanent marker to draw a design on the boxes.

The black dotted lines wraps around the box, and then when it loops to the bottom I wrote a little message on the boxes – I hope the children can read my hand writing:

Congratulations Santa Shoebox Project – what an incredible initiative.  I am definitely going to steal the idea I saw and build at least one box a month so when next October swings round it is not such a HUGE project, and more importantly I can pick up bargains as the year goes by.

{Thanks to Kennith Barlow who helped me with the boxes.  Okay, he did not actually make or pack any, but he brought me glasses of wine, and he also bought some great things from Cape Union Mart which I added to the box!}