It’s always good to receive updates from Companies across London and to be able to share what they have been up to with others. We hope that by sharing these stories, other companies will be inspired to do similar activities.

Throughout November members of 4th Sutton Boys’ Brigade Company with their sisters in Girls’ Brigade collected gifts to add to the shoeboxes they donated to the Samaritans Purse charity as part of their ‘Operation Christmas Child‘.

Through their donations which included gifts, toys & games, as well as other items, and along with the knitting skills of Jacqueline, one of the Girls’ Brigade leaders, they were able to fill 30 shoe boxes. Andrew, one of the church members at Sutton Baptist Church, kindly wrapped them for the company and took them to a nearby collection point.

We know that there are a number of Boys’ Brigade companies who get involved with this appeal already and do their bit to spread ‘Good news and Great Joy’ all around the world at Christmas. If you haven’t previously been involved with this, there are a number of ways you could do so next year. This could involve:

• Donating items to be packed into the shoeboxes.
• Packing the shoeboxes.
• Wrapping the shoeboxes (what a great lesson in life skills for those in Company & Seniors).
• Organising and being the point of contact for donations within your church.
• Volunteering at one of the processing centres if there is one near you (could you add this into the programme for Seniors working towards their major awards).

As you can appreciate, these shoeboxes go all over the world and need to arrive by Christmas and so if you want to be involved next year, you will need to plan it into your termly programme so the boxes are complete by mid-November. All the information you will need can be found on the Samaritans Purse Website.