South Africans come together to help a Girl Child reach her full potential

A young girl child was in need two years ago and the community that follows ‘Santa’s Shoebox’ came together to raise funds for her. This is her story.

In early December 2016 a local charity, the Santa Shoebox Project, shared a sweet story on their Facebook page. The Santa Shoebox Project distributes personalised shoeboxes filled with gifts and necessities to children in need across South Africa and Namibia. In order to make this personalisation possible, the project collects lists of recipient children’s names from schools, creches, ECDs, children’s homes and orphanages in early June and donors are then able to select a specific age, gender and name to make a shoebox for.

Unfortunately, in rare cases, when the time comes to distribute the shoeboxes they discover that the child no longer attends the school or facility. This is exactly what happened in Cape Town in December 2016, but through a wonderful twist of fate, the little girl in question was walking past her creche at the time. Her teachers called her inside and after receiving the special shoebox that was destined for her, the Santa Shoebox Coordinator asked why she wasn’t able to attend school anymore.

Her former teachers explained that her father had been injured at work and the family could no longer afford her creche fees.

A post about the chance encounter and the magical shoebox delivery was shared to the Santa Shoebox Project’s Facebook page – with overwhelming results.

Offers to donate money for her school fees poured in from across the country and enough was collected to send her back to school for a full year with the balance placed in an investment account.

It has been almost two years since that first Facebook post and today, the little Pink Princess (so named by donors) is attending Grade R this year. She is no longer required to pay school fees so the funds made available to her are now used for her school uniform, stationery and any other educational needs that arise.