Bighearted staff of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) based at SEPA’s head office in Stirling have got together to support Operation Christmas Child appeal.

Anne Neil of SEPA’s Finance Department saw details of this project on GMTV and was touched by the simplicity of the appeal which encouraged people across the country to make up a gift box which could be sent to underprivileged children. Over the last month she has worked tirelessly and with the support and generosity of many other SEPA staff has managed to gather well over 50 specially prepared boxes stuffed with Christmas goodies.

Anne lives and works in Stirling and is well known for helping others in a variety of ways. She said: “The shoeboxes are gifts, not boxes of aid. One of Operation Christmas Child's main aims is to encourage children to play. For many children whose lives have been spent in a refugee camp, a war zone, an orphanage or a hospital, receiving a shoebox packed with gifts, toys, games, toiletries, sweets, colouring books and crayons is an incredible sign that someone cares.”

The boxes are to be handed over on Wednesday 19th December.

NOTES:

• The Operation Christmas Child project is the largest Christmas children's gift programme in the world.
  
  
• Last year the appeal collected over seven hundred thousand shoeboxes for across Europe, this year it hopes to help a record number of children.
  
  
• Shoeboxes are collected from children, parents and grandparents from across the UK and Ireland and delivered to desperate children throughout Eastern Europe and in areas of acute need. Nothing is added to any of the shoeboxes sent from the UK through Operation Christmas Child. However the team ask that each box remain unsealed as their contents are always checked for suitability.
  

ENDS