For some of us, Christmas means presents which we carefully choose or which we dream of for months, or wellbeing and happy moments shared with our loved ones. For those who are living from hand to mouth, Christmas days are like any other day in which they strive to escape poverty. Valentin Vesa, a man with a very generous heart living in Cluj-Napoca, shares happiness wrapped in cupboard boxes every year on Christmas. He started the Shoebox campaign in which generous people offer the disadvantaged children sweets, clothes or toys, and do not let them forget that Santa Claus exists.
The story of Shoebox begins in 2007 when Valentin, a young IT engineer living in Cluj-Napoca, wanted to educate his child to be generous and to share his toys with the needy children. They wrapped the first gift in a cupboard shoe box and filled it with candies and toys. He remembers his child being very impressed of the feedback he received from the kid he gave the present and shared his experience with his colleagues in kindergarten. From that point, family friends, parents and simple people who found out about the initiative wanted to start a real campaign so as to fill as many shoe boxes as possible, to put a smile on poor children’s faces. They started encouraging people to donate and demonstrate that everyone can make a child happy on holidays, so they started wrapping dozens of boxes filled with gifts. Every year, more and more disadvantaged children received cupboard boxes presents. In a few years, the campaign grew bigger and bigger and went beyond the country borders.
“We extended the project in 17 countries, almost 160 cities and over 250 collecting centers. In more specific numbers, we can say that we started in 2007 with 512 boxes gathered only in Cluj and in the following years we reached 40.000 boxes.”
Each box has a label on which is written the age of the child so as to help the volunteers sharing the boxes to the right children. The campaign starts every year at the beginning of December, when hundreds of boxes are received from all over the country or from abroad in the collecting centers. The volunteers sort and arrange the boxes which are to be delivered.
“The happiness in children’s eyes when they receive the box is like a drug to us. The children have gorgeous reactions when they get the boxes, some of them are very noisy and happy, while some of them are so surprised they look at you with the box in their hands and can’t believe that it belongs to them.”
Besides the charitable aim, the campaign was a really useful instrument for educating rich children who donated to be grateful to their parents for what they are given.
“The parents who brought the children into the project to help sorting and delivering the boxes told me it’s much easier for them after such an experience. The children see the poor conditions in which other kids live and start appreciating what they have more and change their behavior.”
This year, dozens of collecting centers gathered boxes and these days, the volunteers travel in villages to offer the children a chance to have an unforgettable Christmas.
