Bay of Plenty Shoebox Christmas

Bay of Plenty Shoebox Christmas (generally known as Tauranga Shoebox Christmas) has been running since 2016 and is made up of a team of volunteers, who are passionate about spreading Christmas cheer throughout Tauranga and the wider BOP region, one shoebox at a time. Late 2020 we registered formally as a Charitable Trust, legally registered as 'Bay of Plenty Shoebox Christmas'.

Our team of volunteers liaise with schools, ECE's, and other community organisations to reach out to those whanau who may be struggling (we work with the schools and social workers to determine different levels of 'struggling' - it may be trauma, grief, illness, bullying, financial hardship, grandparents and wider whanau raising extra children in their home etc).

We match each child up anonymously with a generous donator. The donator prepares a shoebox of new gifts for their allocated child, wraps the box and labels it and drops it back to us at one of our drop off locations. Our team of Christmas elves then sort, stack and deliver the shoeboxes to the schools, ECE's and other organisations where they are then passed on to the children whom donators have shopped for.

Each year we have expanded and 2021 will be the first year of having every single primary school within Tauranga Urban Limits involved in our project. We are also expanding to the wider BOP area so we can spread our Christmas cheer further. To date, our organisation has been running on a lot of donated love, sweat and time and as we expand our running costs are increasing.

With this givealittle page, we intend to hopefully receive donations to assist in covering website hosting and development to make it easier for people to participate, expansion to the wider BOP region, insurances for our shoeboxes in the event of theft, fire and flooding, advertising and marketing and to cover some basic costs such as stationary, wrapping paper and sellotape.

Whilst a shoebox doesn’t seem like much for some people, for many children, Christmas with gifts doesn’t happen for them. A shoebox of brand-new gifts to call their own can make a memorable Christmas for many.