Sending love in a box

Almost 500 shoe boxes filled with Christmas treats and essential items by people throughout the Advertiser area will set off for Romania today.

They have been donated to the Give Love In A Box This Christmas appeal organised by the charity Teams4U, which also helps with, for example, medical treatment in Uganda and holiday camps for orphans in Belarus.

Mrs Janet Walker, of Little Carlton, organised the appeal in the area, with her husband, Mr Ian Walker, and Mrs Ellice Ashdown, of Fiskerton, and her husband, Mr Bill Ashdown.

Methodist minister the Rev Peter Hibberts allowed Sutton-on-Trent Metho-dist Church to be used as a collection point.

A coach donated by Marshalls of Sutton-on-Trent collected the boxes on Thursday. The final ones were loaded on Sunday at a sending-off service.

They will be taken to a collection point in Evesham ahead of being distributed to children and families in Eastern Europe.

Mrs Walker said the boxes were filled by people in Newark, Southwell and surrounding villages. Schools that helped were Lowe’s Wong junior and infants’, Sutton-on-Trent, Muskham, Elston and Farnsfield.

Mr and Mrs Walker plan to go to Romania for a week to help with the distribution of the boxes.