Over 270,000 boxes were collected!

This year, Her has been supporting the Team Hope Ireland Christmas Shoebox Appeal. We asked our wonderfully generous readers to get on board with the campaign and pack a shoebox to send to a child in need this Christmas. Over the past two months, colourfully-wrapped boxes packed with toys, sweets and clothing arrived in never-before-seen numbers to Team Hope's collection points across the country. In November, Team Hope announced that a very special box had arrived in Dublin – the two millionth box to be collected over the appeal's 10 years of operation. Now, Her is delighted to reveal that the final tally for this year's Shoebox Appeal is in, and it's bigger than ever before. An astonishing 270,436 shoeboxes were collected in 2019, that's over 11,000 more than last year! We want to join Team Hope in saying a massive THANK YOU to all of our readers who took part in this year's appeal and took the time to fill a shoebox – or several as many of you kind souls out there did.   Of course, collecting the shoeboxes is just one half of the job for Team Hope and, with Christmas almost upon us, they have been busy delivering boxes of Christmas cheer to children across the developing world. Last week, a group of the charity's staff and volunteers journeyed to Romania. There, they delivered a stack of Christmas gifts, including that extra special two millionth shoebox. “The shoebox was given to a lovely six-year-old girl called Aline who lives with a foster family," says Carol Hennessey, National Manager of the Team Hope Shoebox Appeal. "She loved her shoebox which was filled with colouring pens, hats, sweets and a flamingo – she smiled from ear to ear! Receiving the two millionth box made Aline feel so special, and that feeling is one that has been felt by all the children who have been gifted a shoebox over the years. Every shoebox has counted, thank you.” If you missed out on your chance to fill a shoebox for Team Hope, or have a little extra cash lying around this Christmas, there's still time to send a ready-made box to a child in Kenya for a donation of €15.