Christmas appeal will help disadvantaged across the world

Volunteer Mohammed Usman packing some of the boxes for last year's appeal

Operation Christmas Child co-ordinator Hazel Adebogun and her team are asking kind-hearted Rotherham residents to fill a shoebox with little presents and hand them in over the next week or so.

The boxes will be flown out to Eastern Europe, Syria and Africa.

Hazel said: “These little gifts are sometimes the only gifts these children have ever received and are so special to them.”

People happy to help out are asked to decorate a shoebox and place inside a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and a face cloth together with paper and pencils, a packet of sweets something to keep a child a bit warmer — such as a hat and gloves — and anything else they can fit in and drop it off at collection points borough-wide.

This year, donations can be left at Asda in Aldwarke, Tesco Extra and Shoezone in the town centre, Madheads on Wellgate, Beauty by Pene inside Techniques at Broad Street, Parkgate, and Talbot Lane Methodist Church opposite the Town Hall.

The processing centre where all the boxes are checked and packed is at Talbot Lane Methodist Church and will be open until Friday, December 1, from 10am to 4pm, for people to go along and help out or simply see the operation in action.

Previous years have seen up to 3,000 shoeboxes collected.

For more information, visit the Operation Christmas Child UK website at https://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk.