Welcome to our new member of the Team
Welcome to Kate Folan, our new Team Member here at Voluntary Action Coventry (VAC). Kate joins us as an Apprentice, to follow a course in Administration and Marketing and we’re delighted to have Kate on board! She brings enthusiasm and an appetite for trying out all things new. Kate is supporting the work of VAC, with a specific focus on our ‘Get Involved Coventry’ initiative and our VAC room hire service and in this, the first of her blog posts, Kate describes her first experience of accompanying the Improving Lives team to a group volunteering session at Samaritan’s Purse.
Gifts of Hope: Inside Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Mission – by Kate Folan
On Thursday 27 November, myself and the Improving Lives team had the privilege of helping Samaritan’s Purse with their Christmas shoebox project named ‘Operation Christmas Child’. This project helps children in need across the world by filling shoeboxes with toys, personal care items, school supplies, and fun gifts.
Upon our arrival, we were greeted with an instructional yet informative video on ‘Operation Christmas Child’ and what we would be doing to help. This consisted of checking the shoeboxes to remove any inappropriate items and sealing the box to prepare for transport. Once the video was completed, we then engaged in a prayer of good spirits and blessings (Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian charity) and then moved to the processing room to begin sorting and packing.
I was pleased to discover how many people were in good spirits and helping while singing along to Christmas songs playing from the speakers. When we first entered the processing room, we were met with rows of tables and hundreds of boxes, both shoe boxes and transport boxes.
Once we were familiar with the layout of the warehouse and the process, we were given table 9 to begin checking shoe boxes. Luckily on the table there were guides to appropriate and inappropriate items and fillers for the boxes in case some looked a little empty. In my opinion the process was very fun to discover what people had chosen to gift the children. Some even chose to leave photos, notes and letters to the children which were lovely to read.
Our participants thoroughly enjoyed our group volunteering trip to Samaritan’s Purse. One volunteer mentioned:
“This was an amazing opportunity and I’m so grateful to Improving Lives for showing us how to get involved in helping our community”.
All our Improving Lives participants are keen to join us again to help more children get a Christmas shoe box.
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To find out how Improving Lives could support you or someone you know, view the event flyer here and take a look at our web page.
Next courses dates:
Get Involved Coventry – why don’t you take the next step?
For more ways to get involved with Community Action in Coventry, browse ‘Get Involved Coventry’ – search for volunteer roles plus events and activities at community organisations near you.
