Sharing at Christmas time – Gift Box Appeal

The children in our English Primary Section were eager to contribute to the charity collection Gift Box Appeal. It is held in the region each year and is a Christmas tradition at IIL.

Preparation for the 2017 Gift Box Appeal began in early November when we held special assemblies for both key stages. We were very happy to be able to welcome two members of the charity organising the event in our area who presented more information to the children.

This appeal has been running for the past 21 years. It brings together schools, companies and individuals in order to donate gifts to children in orphanages, schools and hospitals. The Gift Boxes go to help children in Moldavia, Belarus, Rumania and Ukraine.

To date over 40,000 children have received a very special Gift Box. These may be the first presents they have ever been given. Our students got a chance to see videos with children receiving gifts through the project and the reactions of the children opening their brightly wrapped gifts were amazing.  The words ‘wow’ and sound of ‘ooh’ need no translation. More importantly, the smiles and happiness we saw as they carefully took every gift out of the box, was proof that the children appreciated their presents.

Our wonderful children here at IIL were so happy to be able to help:

“We are filling up the children’s buckets with so much sunshine they will be overflowing”

“Wow! – this feels like Santa’s Christmas Eve workshop”

A huge thank you to everyone involved. To all those who donated a Gift Box. To all the children and specially to the Year 6 teachers, children and assistants who worked together to collect, count and pack the boxes, ready for the Gift Box team to begin their journey to deliver these wonderful gifts.

The appeal was truly a team effort and together we contributed to the overall total of 2,306 boxes collected this year around Geneva. A massive thank you!

By Rebecca Gove
English Primary
rgrove(at)iil.ch