Day 8 - volunteer numbers up, fillers down

Lunchtime discussion and viewing

Just as yesterday was a record for the number of boxes received in a day, today was a record for the number of volunteers who came to help. At the end of the day 71 people had signed in, and it was definitely standing room only at coffee time. At both coffee and lunch time, Carolyn talked about how important these gifts of love are, and how much they mean to the children in the destination countries, many of whom live on rubbish tips and in sewers. At lunchtime, the 2011 OCC DVD was shown which highlighted this message very vividly.

Carolyn's reduced desk area

Given the number of volunteers now wanting to check, we needed a few extra tables. These were rounded up from the various support areas and no-one was spared, including Carolyn who managed extremely well considering her desk area was reduced by 50% - sorry! all in a good cause.

But as the volunteer and checked box numbers rose, the filler numbers declined and all too soon, the warehouse had run out of soap, biros, flannels, colouring pencils, and fibre tips. It is, of course, likely that we will have more donations of fillers, but with 8 more days of checking, we really do need as many donations as possible.

The RBS team

There were so many volunteers who could have told their stories today, but there was one group that had come thanks to their company's generosity of giving them a "charity day".  8 volunteers (Martyn, Julie, Felicity, Tina, Claire, Dawn, Kirsty, and Sarah) from the Private Banking department of Royal Bank of Scotland in Farnborough came this morning, were trained and joined in with checking, packing and even went out on the van. Most of them had donated boxes in the past, but for all of them, it was the first time to volunteer in the warehouse. They were all impressed by the scale and organisation of the operation and described their involvement as being very humbling and extremely worthwhile. Thanks everyone, we hope your office didn't miss you too much and we look forward to seeing you next year.

The House Captains of St Hilary's

Another group that came to visit today were from St Hilary's School in Godalming. Their four House Captains had been chosen to bring their boxes to the warehouse. The girls told the blog that they had each done a box at home and they had brought the boxes to school for a special assembly. Thanks girls - great job!

Different types of sewing kits

Today's filler is an ideal gift for a 10-14 year old girl. It can come in all shapes and sizes and contain a variety of items but each is practical and can give hours of pleasure. It's a sewing kit - the larger ones could be plastic boxes or small decorated jewelry boxes and can hold scissors, wool, buttons and small pieces of material. But amazingly even a film pot can hold small reels of cotton, needles, and a few buttons. The film pots are ideal for using up that space in a corner of a box.

And Ted? well today, he was hard at work, and could be found helping out in the cartoning area. Well done Ted - we've nearly enough cartons now for Kyrgyzstan!

Ted at work!

See you tomorrow!