Diocesan News
25 years of sharing Christmas joy with others around the world
Drumkeeran Parish Hall in Clogher Diocese was recently bursting with the joys of Christmas as thousands of shoeboxes collected for this year’s Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child were prepared for loading onto a lorry to bring to needy children in foreign countries.
This collection centre at Tubrid in North Fermanagh is supervised each year by Irene Boyd MBE who receives filled boxes from people from churches, schools and various organisations from over a wide area.
But this year is a special one for Irene. This is her 25th year as co–ordinator in the area for the charity, the international organisation which delivers the boxes of toys and goodies to children who have not experienced gifts at Christmas before.
Irene modestly estimates that in all those years, she has overseen the collection of almost 110,000 shoeboxes with an average 4,000 boxes brought to her collection centre at Drumkeeran Parish Hall, Tubrid, each year.
Irene has been supported by a team of committed volunteers who help check the boxes and seal them before they are packed into cardboard cartons prior to loading onto a lorry at the end of November.
For Irene, her work begins in January each year, when she uses some of the donations she receives for the charity, to buy items in the post–Christmas sales which will be used as fillers for the following year’s boxes. Then in August and September, she will visit schools, youth organisations, voluntary organisations and churches distributing leaflets and give talks before preparing to accept the filled boxes throughout October and November.
She says she wants to share God’s love through bringing these small gifts to children of various ages in countries where Christmas presents are not able to be given.
It all began for Irene from a small project she introduced to her Sunday School class in the 1990s, originally using her home as a makeshift collection centre. Now this has grown to be a major exercise each year as she co–ordinates this collection centre.
She acknowledges great help from her husband John and family members as well as her team of volunteers and for others around the diocese as well as from many different church denominations.
Through the year, Irene promotes the charity through talks to various church groups, senior citizens’ clubs and school organisations and often accepts donations for the charity which helps to purchase additional resources such as booklets of Gospel stories about the birth of Jesus which will accompany the boxes.
As Irene, her family and local helpers look forward to their own Christmas celebrations, they can be satisfied that needy children and teenagers will take great delight opening their boxes of joy and goodwill.
For further information please contact:
Diocesan Communications Officer, Clogher
07708 869823
Mr Brian Donaldson
clogherdco@btinternet.com