DUBBO's Sylvia Paice has spent years collecting thousands of gift-filled shoeboxes for children in developing countries and this year is no different.
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Ms Paice is the area co-ordinator for Operation Christmas Child, which sends the shoeboxes from Australia and New Zealand to countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Vanuatu, Laos, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Thailand.
Last year donors in Dubbo and surrounds contributed 1674 shoeboxes, a figure Ms Paice hoped would be exceeded this year.
Donors could help by picking up or decorating their own shoebox and deciding whether they would like to send age-appropriate gifts to a boy or girl, Ms Paice said.
Each box typically contained something to love (a teddy bear, perhaps), something for school such as an exercise book or filled pencil case, a doll, skipping rope or ball to play with, something such as a t-shirt, shorts or hat to wear, something for personal hygiene such as a toothbrush or facewasher and soap and something special such as a picture or a bag.
Items that might leak or break, toy guns, knives or military figures and gambling, religious, racial or political items were not advisable, Ms Paice said.
Anyone with inquiries or who could help out in other ways could visit www.operationchristmaschild.org.au or contact Ms Paice on 0421 358 972, she said.
A $9 donation was also requested to help with administration costs.
Shoeboxes could be collected from the Christian Book Shop in Talbragar Street, and dropped off at the Salvos Family Store when it opened its new premises in Cobborah Road from September.
At the end of October, Robert Holmes Transport would once again once again transport the gift-filled shoeboxes to Sydney at no charge, Ms Paice said.
Having visited Vietnam last year to help distribute some of the shoeboxes, Ms Paice saw firsthand the joy and hope gifts brought to recipients.
"They are overwhelmed, they are so poor and some have never received a gift before," she said.
"In Australia we have so much, and whereas these boxes might not mean so much to a child who, say, has a lot of electronic toys, they mean a lot to these children." Shoeboxes were often a first point of contact for a community, she said, with volunteers who distributed them frequently helping build hospitals, schools and supplying water filters to communities, she said.