It’s less than 2 months ’til Christmas, but we at TravelGround and LekkeSlaap have already experienced the joy of giving thanks to the Santa Shoebox Project. We’ve spent the last few days shopping and putting together 50 shoeboxes full of toiletries, clothes, toys, and treats for the underprivileged children in our community.

The Santa Shoebox Project has set the target at 100,000 boxes this year – that’s 100,000 happy faces – and they are 99.7% of the way there. There’s still a little time left to pledge your own box – so we urge anyone interested to fill the 03% gap (and then some) to pledge a box today! And if you’re a donor in Cape Town, there is something new and exciting in store for you too…

Visit Santa’s Workshop in Cape Town

The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) has sponsored their world-class venue as a central Drop-Off zone, receiving a massive 35,000 boxes for Cape Town. For the first time ever, there will be an interactive Santa’s Workshop experience for donors and their children. The large Exhibition Halls 1A & B will be transformed into a festive workshop with dancers, singers, face painters, magicians and balloon artists on a centre stage surrounded by your Santa Shoeboxes. A highlight will be the story time presented by Exclusive Books with story tellers in character and the most desirable book hampers up for grabs.

Children can have their photo taken with Santa in a secret grotto, meet recipient children, support their favourite DJ in a box wrapping competition, be filmed by e.tv and, for the first time, really experience the journey of their box and understand the impact of their donation. It will be a magical and educational experience for young and old!

Did you know?

• To date The Santa Shoebox Project has distributed 346,074 shoeboxes throughout South Africa and Namibia.
• The number of Santa Shoeboxes has grown from a humble 180 boxes in 2006 to a record 118 274 in 2013.
• For the first time, you can donate Proudly South African rain ponchos.
• Public donations will be used for skills training at the more than 1000 Santa Shoebox recipient facilities.

On behalf of TravelGround and LekkeSlaap, we’d like to thank the Santa Shoebox Project for organising this fantastic initiative that brings a smile to not only to thousands of underprivileged children, but to the many donors who are able to experience the joy of giving!

Find out how else you can support the Santa Shoebox Project.

Here are some more pics of our TravelGround & LekkeSlaap elves at work…