The Best Sort of Letter

Those of you who might have clicked on the 'favourite sites' link at the top right hand corner may have found themselves on the Shelterbox website.

In general I don't bang drums for the charities I support because I am well aware that there are thousands of good causes out there and I think people find the ones that they have a passion for, and who am I to suggest that they should give money to things that chime with me?

 

I love Shelterbox because it is such a good basic idea. There's a disaster, people need certain things as quickly as possible and that's what Shelterbox does. They send out boxes and in the box are the  basics that people hit by natural disaster need; a tent for a family, thermal blankets and groundsheets, water storage and purification equipment, solar lamps, cooking utensils, a basic tool kit, mosquito nets and a children’s activity pack. 

 

When you give them money the money goes towards equipping a box. They send you the box number you have helped to fill. And the best bit - when 'your' box goes out they write and tell you where they have sent it, why and how it helped. So you have the connection between your donation and real people in a real disaster for whom the outcome would have been much less good if you hadn't bothered.

 

I recently got a letter about my latest box. It went to help people in North Korea whose lives were devastated by Typhoon Bolaven. There was little publicity about the disaster as NK is publicity shy when it comes to disasters, but Shelterbox was there - and so was my bx.

 

Knowing that gave me a little glow.