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Magheragall supports Blythswood Care’s Shoebox Appeal

Monday October 23rd 2017

Some of the Magheragall team with the made up shoeboxes for Blythswood Care.

Harvest was celebrated in Magheragall on Sunday October 15 with four different services. In the country, many neighbours and old friends come to share in worship which makes for a very full church.

Over the Harvest weekend the parish collected food for Lisburn Food Bank, and for the last seven years the parish has also supported Blythswood Care’s Shoebox Appeal and over that period has made up 1,321 completed boxes.

Sam McKinstry turns up on his tractor!

This year the team met in the parish hall on Saturday to make up the boxes. Parishioner Sam McKinstry, now legally old enough to drive his tractor on the road, added that extra harvest feel when he turned up in his tractor to lend a helping hand.

Blythswood Care’s Shoebox Appeal distributes to schools, orphanages, hospitals, needy families and individuals. In 2016 it did so in different areas of Romania, where they were very much needed and greatly appreciated.

In 2016, Blythswood Care was able to distribute its two-millionth shoebox since the appeal began in 1993. The recipient was a 10-year-old boy with special needs, living with his eight other older brothers and sisters in a remote village in central Romania. His mother was just so happy that her boy had received a Christmas present.

This year the team completed 230 boxes which will go from Magheragall Parish to Pakistan in time for Christmas.

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