MORE than 3,000 Christmas presents have left Barrow and are on their way to Romania.

Shoeboxes transformed by wrapping paper and filled with gifts will arrive in Romania by the weekend.

The distribution team will follow behind, joining the presents on Sunday, December 4, to dish them out to children living in ‘abject poverty’.

The distribution team trip is all self-funded and is described as ‘hard work but very rewarding’ by Boxes of Hope Cumbria trustee Rhona Teale.

Surplus funds generated by the campaign are transferred to charity partners in Romania, the People to People Foundation.

The funds are used to change the lives of the children that they work with in the villages of Tinca and Hetea.

This year the charity will also be distributing boxes to Ukrainian children who have been displaced from their home country by conflict with Russia.

The Boxes of Hope Cumbria campaign sees people fill shoeboxes with goodies such as balls, skipping ropes, stationary items, hygiene items, woolly hats and gloves which are then wrapped and sent to Romania with a team of volunteers.

The children that benefit from the Christmas cheer brought by the shoeboxes often live in wooden huts and lack basic essentials such as heating and running water. Some children in the poorest areas are living in a rubbish tip.

The successful 2022 campaign marks 10 years of bringing gifts to children in Romania.

Rhona said: “We had 3,259 boxes into the Barrow Warehouse and a grand total of 8,512 across Cumbria - and it’s thanks to all the children in the schools, church members, guiding and scouting groups, WI's, members of the public to name but a few.”

Rhona also thanked the drop off points for collecting the boxes and all of the volunteers who worked ‘tirelessly’ to check and pack the shoeboxes ‘bringing smiles to 8,500 children living in abject poverty in Romania’.