Members of Westbury United Reformed Church spent a pleasant evening recently filling 43 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.

The Minister’s dog, Poppy, enjoyed chewing on cardboard from the packaging and youngsters Matthew and Rachel ensured that each box was well filled. They later went with their mother, Jenny, to the new Westbury depot where they were amazed to see hundreds of other boxes.

Church elder Priscilla Gray said: “We spend all year assembling the contents. Members are invited to provide different items each month. Two of our members do a lot of beautiful knitting and another makes cloth bags for the children to put their treasures in after the boxes are finished with. We enjoy doing this and are becoming experts at finding bargains!”