Each year the Rotary Club of Yea invites members and the community to fill a shoe box full of inexpensive goodies for a Christmas gift to a child in a needy country overseas. These gifts often go to a child who would not otherwise receive anything for Christmas and for the past two years these shoe boxes have gone to an orphanage for disabled children in East Timor.
Over 40 beautifully presented and filled shoe boxes were given to this appeal this year and the boxes e travelled to Fiji on December 15th. The Rotary Club of Yea thanked the community for their enthusiastic support of this unique Christmas appeal. Many of the residents and members of Rotary said they would have liked to have been present to see the children's delighted faces. The Club has asked for photos of the children as they receive their gifts to publish in the local Yea Chronicle so the givers can see this, which for many would possibly have been the first Christmas gift they have ever received.
The shoe boxes' transport and allocation is handled by "Donations In Kind", a group of Rotarians who organize, package and send shipping containers to third world countries filled with items which are gratefully received. Often hospitals, schools and big business upgrade equipment for a newer, later version but this does not necessarily mean the old machine/furniture is unusable. To third world countries receiving an obsolete x-ray machine, ambi-lift, hospital bed, or computer etc is a dream come true for them, as they often have nothing!
Rotary clubs not involved in packaging these donated items in shipping containers for use overseas donate money for the transport costs and collect goods from their own districts. The container leaving for Fiji on December 15th contains not only the Christmas Shoe Boxes filling every available corner but some hospital equipment donated to Donations in Kind by the Yea Hospital. This container is also transporting an ambulance donated by the Rotary Club of Templestowe, given by local paramedics when their ambulance was upgraded!
