“In Germany there are people that love me!”
“I'm so happy! Miss Monica, I didn't know there are people in Germany that love me! Can you tell them 'thank you' for me?” Albert, 9 years old, doesn't know if it's too good to be true. In his arms he's holding a Christmas parcel; it's so heavy that he can barely hold it. “He was heavily traumatized when we met him,” Monica Boseff, representative of Helping Hands' local partner in Bucharest, explains. “His parents are divorced; when his mother remarried, she didn't want him anymore. Now he lives with his father, stepmother and grandmother in a small house. His father's salary is barely enough for basic necessities.”
Standing next to Albert are Denisa and Sabrina. The sisters have come alone to pick up the parcels. Their mother has to work late hours to feed her family and also has to protect her children from the abusive father. The constant violence has left deep scars in the children's hearts. What an amazing difference the gifts from the Christmas shipment make! “They were so happy about everything they received,” Monica Boseff reports, “about the food, the clothes and toys, the school supplies and shoes.” In their gift bags they found two pretty dresses and put them on right away. Now they are simply glowing with happiness. “No one at home is going to give us anything for Christmas,” they say. “We want to thank all the good people that made us and our mom happy!”
The annual Helping Hands Christmas shipment that left Gelnhausen in Germany at the beginning of December included 9000 kg or 61.5 m³ of aid goods (clothes, shoes, linen etc.) and Christmas parcels (food and toiletries)—more than 100 boxes more than the previous year. After about two days the shipment reached Bucharest where it was unloaded by local volunteers. Helping Hands' local partner distributed 200 Christmas boxes and relief supplies to elderly ladies and families with children in Bucharest as well as needy families in six surrounding villages. The other parcels and relief boxes were sent on to Sighisoara, Tigmandru and Viscri as well as Vidrare in Bulgaria, where they were given to children in a boarding school.
In Romania and Bulgaria the Christmas boxes, aid goods and school supplies cause great joy around Christmas time but also meet a variety of urgent needs and relieve suffering. “All these things, the food, the clothes, toys, shoes, toiletries and school supplies—those are things that many people here urgently need, but cannot buy for themselves. They would have not had them had it not been for you to send them!” Monica Boseff writes. “A big Thank You to everybody involved in this for loving these kids, these elderly ladies and all the people they've helped so much by sending this container!”
Find out here how you can send your own parcel!