Christmas charity toy collection begins today
Irish people are expected to collect up to 300,000 boxes of Christmas toys for needy children abroad in coming weeks.
The Operation Christmas Child initiative by Christian relief organisation Samaritan’s Purse is being run for the ninth year.
The traditional shoe boxes are being distributed to schools, offices, factories, churches, youth groups and families.
The toys will be shipped to children in orphanages, schools, street shelters, hospitals and poor communities in 10 nominated countries in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and southern Africa.
“This year we will send boxes to Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho,” said Niall Barry, Samaritan’s Purse executive director.
Operation Christmas Child, which began in Wales in the early 1990s, is now the world’s largest children’s Christmas project.
Last year 7.5 million needy children in almost one hundred countries received boxes of toys.
A total of 271,067 of these boxes were collected in Ireland.
