Santa Shoebox Project

For weeks, the walls and roof we built at Reaiteka had one job: to keep the world out. Now we’re adding the parts that let it back in. 💖

The doors will help keep 64 children safely inside their classrooms. The windows have a different job. They let in light for story time and fresh air for a room full of busy little bodies. A square of sky. A passing bird. A butterfly that can turn one small question into a whole lesson.🍎🎓

Because we're not building a place for children to hide from the world. We're building them a place to get ready for it.💖

Safe behind the door. Dreaming out of the window. That's what we built this week.

This is Build Eight for SSP Legacy, and our first with partners Breadline Africa, the Centre for Early Childhood Development, Kathu Solar Park and the Maruping community.

📣Follow along and .

Support the work:
https://santashoebox.org.za/support-legacy/

📣Marlene Agrella has been donating for over a decade. 💖Here's her beautiful story.

When my son was four or five, I saw an article in the local paper asking people to donate Santa Shoeboxes. I thought it would be a lovely project for the two of us. That first year we packed one box, for a little boy the same age as my son. The idea of wrapping a gift for a child who'd never had new toys or clothes of his own felt like something special. 💖

The next year we chose the children together - a boy and a girl. Picking out all the goodies was so much fun.

Then I started helping at drop-off. My first celebration was chaos, but the children's faces when they opened their boxes were beyond words. 💖 That's when it hit me: even though we were only giving two boxes, to those two children that box was the most magic they had ever known.

Now I start collecting for next year almost as soon as I've dropped this year's off, and I fill as many boxes as my budget allows. Some years have been hard, but I know every single box counts. 👊

When October draws near, out come the shoeboxes and the wrapping paper. Even my cats get involved, climbing in to test-fit each box and make sure there's room for everything! 😂

Thank you to all the hardworking volunteers who make Santa Shoebox the magic that it is.

PEP