A teenager has packed up more than 1,000 Christmas shoe boxes for children in poverty abroad.
Every year for the past four years Charlotte Baker, now 16, spends a month collecting and making up the boxes ready for them to be send to children in Bulgaria.
Charlotte, who became a fundraiser after the death of her brother, who died in a car accident in 2013, packs up several hundred boxes each year. This year, she hit the 1,000-box mark.
The shoe boxes include essential items like toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, stationery, toys and warm clothing. They are collected, checked, then distributed to children in Bulgaria and eastern Serbia through local charity the Foundation for Social Change and Inclusion (FSCI).
As well as receiving pledges for boxes from friends, Charlotte, from Ditcheat, Somerset, writes to local schools and supermarkets to garner support, as well as spending a day collecting in her local supermarket.
Her latest effort saw around 280 boxes packed up in her mum’s dining room before they were loaded into a van on Saturday ready to make their journey to the children who will benefit from them.
‘I’m just so pleased,’ said Charlotte. ‘It’s an amazing feeling to know that over the past few years I’ve done more than 1,000 boxes. It’s just such a strange feeling once they’ve all been sent off – the house feels empty and quiet, there’s no boxes everywhere.’
The 16-year-old, who started her A-levels this academic year, said: ‘It’s never easy as there’s so much to do, but in some ways being in sixth form helps because I have some free time in the day so can pack some up then. It’s still tough though, trying to fit it all in around everything else that’s going on.’
The kind-hearted gesture has become an annual thing for Charlotte, who is studying drama, psychology and religious studies and hopes to become a dog trainer, and she said she can’t see herself quitting any time soon.
‘I definitely want to do it next year and I’ve got no reason to stop, but it does slightly depend on what I do after school I guess,’ she said.
‘I just love the feeling of helping people and also the fact that I can help other people feel like that and feel that they are helping other people is great too. Everybody pulls together in so many different areas of my life, it’s lovely to see.’
Charlotte’s mum Sarah, 41, said: ‘I’m just so proud of her. Of course it’s great to get my dining room back after a month of it being stacked up with boxes but seeing how much she gets from it, and how many people also get involved, is really wonderful.
‘Each year I wonder whether her enthusiasm will have waned, or if she’ll want to do something different, but it doesn’t and she gets so much from it. She has a lot of support from schools and from her dog training club, and I think because she’s so passionate about it and feels so strongly about it that rubs off on other children and people around her.’
They’re now looking into whether they can help Charlotte achieve her dream of travelling to Bulgaria to see the boxes being opened by the children who receive them.
‘Next year she’ll be in the middle of her A-levels which will mean it won’t really be possible,’ her mum added.
‘But we’re trying to see if we can get her out there for a few days in mid-December to actually see the children receive the boxes. It all depends on how we can finance it, but it would be wonderful to help her achieve her dream.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/26/teen-makes-more-than-1000-christmas-gift-boxes-for-children-in-bulgaria-11214314/
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