Thousands of people across Perth and Kinross have once again been filling Christmas shoeboxes for those less fortunate.

Volunteers have been collecting and sorting through the donations this week, with the ‘sorting office’ this year being based at Perth Baptist Church on Almond View.

The parcels collected for this year’s Blythswood Shoebox Appeal will be sent to children and vulnerable adults living in Romania, and for many this will be the only Christmas present they receive.

Rev Gordy Mackay, community pastor at Perth Baptist Church, said: “We have had shoeboxes coming in pretty constantly. We have 1500 so far.

“The majority of people are bringing in actual made up boxes, because a lot of people like to do that themselves – one lady just came in and dropped off three.

“And others are donating odds and ends as well so that we can make up more shoeboxes here.”

A team of hardworking volunteers from the community, churches across the region and from SSE in Inveralmond worked around the clock at the baptist church to fill the boxes and check the boxes were suitable for customs. They also added Romanian books on the Christmas story and calendars to the shoeboxes from Blythswood as well.

Rev Mackay continued: “This is the first year we have done it here.

“It had been at the North Church, who have been doing it for many years but didn’t feel able to this year.

“We have been getting folk from the wider community in to help, it is not just our own church, which is great to see.

“We have also had people going out in minibuses to towns and villages to collect boxes – earlier on we went out to Blairgowrie, for example.

“When you open up the shoeboxes it is so humbling to see the generosity of folk and how much time they take over it.

“Often these are the only gifts these folk will get, so the fact we are willing to show someone in another country is willing to make a contribution is very heartwarming.”

As well as filling shoeboxes, people have also been donating to the appeal to help cover the cost of transporting the shoeboxes over to Romania.

The shoeboxes will be shipped off from Perth Baptist Church in the first week of December, and will arrive with those in Romania in time for Christmas Day.