MORE   than 4,000 gift-filled boxes will  delivered from south Cumbria to children who won’t receive anything else this Christmas.

The 2015 Cumbria Boxes of Hope campaign  closed with 4,150 hand-wrapped shoeboxes gathered at the Barrow collection point.

They were  filled by schools, organisations, businesses and individuals  for disadvantaged children living in Romania and will be added to the rest of the collections throughout the county.

Since this year’s campaign began, more than 100 dedicated volunteers have been hand-checking each shoebox to ensure its contents are suitable before they were due to be loaded on to wagons today.

A group of volunteers will then make the journey to Romania in early December to begin distributing the shoeboxes to the children.

Rhona Teale, shoebox co-ordinator and manager of the Barrow warehouse, said: “It makes me want to cry. I cannot believe the generosity of people in and around Furness. 

"They are just so generous and often it is people who have got very little that are giving us stuff, so I am lost for words really. 

"People are so full of compassion for these children who have got nothing.”

Since 2012 the charity has been sending shoeboxes filled with toys, clothing and toiletries to some of the world’s most underprivileged children.

The Evening Mail office has also served as a drop-off point. 

Mrs Teale, who has just been named as a trustee of the charity, along with assistant manager, Shirley Waters, added: “It takes around four days for the drivers to get over there, but then they have to drive all the way back so it takes about a week in total.

“I am full of compassion and it upsets you but then again you feel happy for them that we have made a difference.

"The team here have all helped towards making a difference to these children’s lives and that’s all that we want to do.”

Once in Romania, the shoeboxes are transported to a warehouse before being loaded on to another wagon where they are distributed around hundreds of villages.

Last year the record was broken  in  Cumbria  when more than 10,000 shoeboxes were collected.

Mrs Teale added: “We have had tremendous support from all the schools in Barrow, they have all sent boxes in and we have also had about 400 boxes from the Millom community."

Mrs Teale said she would also  like to thank Wicks for allowing the volunteers to use their warehouse free of charge.