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Helping to deliver Christmas boxes of gifts to children in Fiji in 2007 left a lasting impression on Ashburton women Rosie Hawkes and her husband Steve.
So much so, they became the project’s co-ordinators in Ashburton.
Operation Christmas Child provides shoebox packages to children in need of an extra lift at Christmas.
Many children receive their first gift via the project.
Each box contains a fun toy (nothing needing a battery), an item of clothing, a hygiene items, school supplies and a “wow” item like a doll, soccer ball and pump.
For nearly a quarter of a century now, the Hawkes have packed shoeboxes of gifts for children in other countries especially around the Pacific Islands.
This year the boxes will be distributed in Fiji.
Their involvement started while visiting family in Australia, and they heard about the project run by Samaritan’s Purse.
When they returned to Ashburton they got involved with the organisation.
They said they get so much pleasure out of creating the boxes of love.
Rosie said it had been a humbling experience to be part of the group distributing the boxes to children.
The experience of being there and seeing first-hand the impact a shoebox had on each child had left her feeling overwhelmed.
“I cried to see how much the gifts meant to the children. It was like nothing else I had ever seen or experienced.
"At first many of the children, when they got their gift, were silent, they then processed what was happening and then there was laughter.
"I remember one little boy, he took the box, opened it and passed it on to another child,” Rosie said.
“He thought he was just to take one thing out of it and share with the rest of his class.
“We had to explain the whole box was his.”
For the boxes, the couple are asking people to fill them with new items.
"They have to be new because the children receiving them are susceptible to disease,” Rosie said.
Boxes will be given to boys and girls in three age brackets: two to four year-olds, five to nine year-olds and 10 to 14 year-olds.
Rosie has spent many hours knitting dolls and animals, and making colourful pencil cases with plastic zips as metal ones rust.
"The children love the homemade items in the boxes,” Rosie said.
"Many of the countries the boxes go to don’t have a welfare system, so lots of families just can’t afford to get children's, gifts or extra things.”
Boxes go to schools as well as to parents in prison to give their child.
While nothing religious goes in the box, pamphlets with a Christian message are available when boxes are distributed.
Schools, early childhood centres, community groups and churches in Mid Canterbury are getting behind the project filling shoeboxes.
Donations are also being dropped to the Baptist Church for the Hawkes to use to fill boxes.
Ashburton Baptist Church receptionist Amali Jayawardena received a box as a teenager in Sir Lanka which was sent by the organisation’s American branch.
She still has a wonderful memory of receiving her box which included girly-girl socks and erasers that looked and smelt like fruit.
“I remember, when I got my box, thinking someone out there is praying for me. It’s a gift of love. Love from someone who doesn’t know me but has God’s love in their heart for us,” Jayawardena said.
Boxes are checked, then collected by Aoraki Furniture Removal from around the South Island.
The New Zealand items are rechecked, to ensure they meet custom requirements, before being packed in a shipping container and shipped overseas.
They will be distributed throughout the Pacific Islands by Samaritans Purse, which is United States-based organisation with New Zealand and Australian branches.
Globally, the organisation collected more than 12 million shoe boxes in 2025, including 13,840 from New Zealand.
Those boxes were distributed in Cambodia, Philippines, Fiji, Solomon Islands and in Ukraine.