On the brink of 2008 and with more than 50,000 gift-filled shoeboxes safely exported from Wrexham to needy children in Africa and Eastern Europe, Operation Christmas Child co-ordinator Dr Jacqui Lines has reflected on a life-changing year for both herself, the volunteers and the charity itself.

Viewing the year's events with a mixture of emotions – thankfulness, joy, happiness, sadness and tiredness – Jacqui said: "I look back with amazement at how things have developed over this year, culminating in this situation.

"This time last year there was sadness mixed with anger at the closure of the Operation Christmas Child permanent warehouse. Wrexham had been the town where it had all started – how could it close?

"The reality was that the cost of keeping the warehouse open all year was too much as it was no longer being used all year round. Now the future of the project locally rested in the hands of volunteers only, with the support of the Samaritan's Purse permanent staff based outside of Wrexham.

"Wrexham had to show it could stand on its own two feet and still be an example to the rest of the UK. At the start there was a small team of dedicated volunteers who, like me, believed we could do it. How? We didn't yet know – but God knew."

As a team OCC was certain there were people in Wrexham and the surrounding area who would help if only they could talk to the right people and keep the project in the public eye.

Jacqui said: "The Evening Leader was such a blessing to us by writing up newsworthy items and keeping folk informed of our situation.

"As the months passed we wrote to all the Wrexham churches, and schools, as well as the mayor, the council and various businesses, asking for help and offering to come and give talks.

"We were rewarded in so many ways – the council offered us the temporary use of a warehouse, churches lent us tables, Ruabon High School lent us tables and chairs for our launch party, businesses gave freely of wood, heaters, forklifts… so many kind offers, so many to say 'Thank You' to."

The dream was gradually becoming a reality, and yet again the people of Wrexham and the surrounding towns were showing an amazingly generous spirit.

The launch party, for which they anticipated about 40 people, was attended by more than 100 people including the deputy mayor, Cllr David Griffiths and his wife, Denise. Jacqui continued: "Our spirits soared at the support that there was for this amazingly simple yet powerful project; showing a needy child that there was someone who cared enough for them to take a shoebox and fill it with simple gifts such as soap, paper, pens, sweets and all sorts of lovely toys and cuddlies – asking nothing in return."

The logistics of every aspect of the process had to be organised – setting up the warehouse to ensure health and safety aspects were covered, making up tables to check shoeboxes and put them into cartons, phoning hundreds of drop-off points, schools, groups and individuals to arrange collection of the shoeboxes, collecting thousands of shoeboxes, checking each one of them, packing them into cartons, and then the final stage of loading the lorries and containers to finally sending the shoeboxes on their way to the children.

Jacqui added: "The warehouse was only open to the public for five weeks and we had to be ready to process 50,000 boxes. Would we do it? The simple answer is: 'Yes, we did'.

"I've only had a very short time to look at the figures but we had almost 300 adults who registered or were involved in the running of the warehouse. There were more than 50 children who accompanied their parents as well as numerous schools, colleges, work and cubs groups.
Because of this tremendous support we were able to check all our shoeboxes and export them within the time we had set.

"In previous years the warehouse would never close and therefore there was never an end point – this year we can be very pleased with the superb effort that so many have made, to make this happen."

From the Wrexham warehouse alone OCC sent 4,948 shoeboxes to Serbia, 8,681 to Swaziland, 4,821 to Hungary, 9,685 to Odessa, 4,310 to Bosnia, 9,151 to Belarus and 7,531 to Kiev.

The Operation Christmas Child warehouse, 2007 has now been dismantled, sorted, packed, emptied, and cleaned and the keys handed back to the council.

Jacqui concluded: "I sit here feeling very tired, but with the satisfaction of knowing there will be many needy children with happy smiles this Christmas because of all the hard work done by so many.
Thank you."