CHARITY volunteers in Abingdon are a bit boxed in – but they are delighted to be surrounded by thousands of Christmas presents for children in Bosnia.

Gabrielle Dent is just one of the volunteers who have been working for Operation Christmas Child, which gives out shoeboxes full of gifts to countries around the world.

The project is run by Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian charity, and people in Oxfordshire have contributed 16,000 boxes this year.

Next week they will be delivered to Bosnia before they are distributed to children in time for Christmas.

For the past week, volunteers at the warehouse in Abingdon and at another near Thame, have been checking the boxes to make sure the contents are suitable for children in the Balkan state and to sort them into batches for different age groups.

Many of the shoeboxes have been prepared by pupils at about 30 schools in the county, or donated by churches and Women’s Institutes.

Former dental nurse Elizabeth Parker, 67, of Wantage Road, Wallingford, is one of 30 volunteers working at the Abingdon warehouse.

This is the sixth year she has helped the annual appeal. She said: “It’s a really wonderful cause. The schoolchildren really get into the spirit of it.”

Operation Christmas Child spokesman Roger Fenton said: “People in Oxfordshire have been hugely generous.

“Schools use the project to teach pupils about how different life can be in other countries.

“It helps them to realise that other children don’t have the same opportunities they do.

“There are probably about £10 worth of presents in each box – in Bosnia £10 can be a month’s salary for a family.”

Pamela Clare, 72, of Napier Road, Cowley, Oxford, and a group of her friends have knitted woollen garments to go in the boxes.

As well as Eastern Europe the charity sends shoeboxes to countries in Africa, including Liberia and Zimbabwe.