Building brighter futures for children, families and communities.
Our Annual Shoebox Appeal makes a real difference to the lives of young people in Romania.
For 35 years, Children in Distress has been bringing hope and happiness to children in Romania facing hardship through our annual Love in a Box Shoebox Appeal. Every Christmas, a beautifully decorated box filled with love, essentials and little surprises, brings joy and smiles to children in need.
2025 Impact
In 2025, thanks to the kindness of our friends and supporters, we delivered over 5,000 individually packed Christmas shoeboxes across Romania to children, teenagers and older adults. Shoeboxes were distributed at over 20 locations, including schools, churches, residential care centres and community projects, including multiple locations in the Bucharest area and surrounding regions. Gifts reached children, families and elderly people in both urban and rural communities. We worked closely with trusted local partners to make sure shoeboxes arrived safely and were shared fairly.
We are also very grateful to our partners in the business world for supporting our annual campaign. This includes the nationalwide haulage and warehousing company, Prestons of Potto. For over 20 years, they have proudly provided storage solutions for our 'Love in a Box' campaign within their warehouses. Enterprise have also supported us with boxes and preferential rates and we have worked alongside Mission Relief for many years. You can find out more about our partners here.
2026 Shoebox Appeal
Our annual Christmas Shoebox Appeal is currently the biggest campaign in our small charity's calendar. We will soon be starting the epic task of coordinating this year's appeal. If you would like to find out more about how you can support the appeal, we would love you to get in touch.
