OPERATION Christmas Child is in full swing.

The annual appeal organises thousands of boxes, filled with small gifts, and sends them to needy children across the world.

For many, the shoeboxes filled with pens, colouring books, toothbrushes, stickers, small toys and hairbrushes will be the only present they open on Christmas Day.

This year, the boxes will be winging their way to Kyrgyzstan, which is near China and on the Russian border.

Poverty is rife in the cold country, so organisers are asking for hats, scarves and gloves for this year’s boxes.

Ann Frost has been a member of the Operation Christmas Child committee in Maldon for nearly nine years.

She said: “We’ve had a fairly good response so far and we’ve had a huge number of people coming in to volunteer.

“There’s a really lovely atmosphere at the warehouse. Knowing you are helping children who are not so well off as ours is great.

“When we have so much at Christmas and they have so little, it’s lovely to see all the boxes.”

l Boxes can be dropped off until tomorrow at the following points: Colchester: Stead and Simpson, Long Wyre Street; Shoe Zone, High Street; St Stephen’s Church Centre, Canterbury Road; St John’s Church, St John’s Close; Stead and Simpson at Fiveways Retail Park, Stanway.

TENDRING: Shoe Zone, Pier Avenue Clacton; Stead and Simpson, Station Road, Clacton; St Paul’s Church, St Paul’s Road, Clacton; Weeley Methodist Church, the Street, Weeley; Frinton Shoe Repairs, Connaught Avenue, Frinton.

Braintree: Stead and Simpson, Rayne Road; Leeds Building Society, High Street; Shoe Zone, High Street; Braintree and Witham Times, High Street; Stead and Simpson, Weaverscourt.

Maldon: Unit 17e, Blackwater Trading Estate, off the Causeway, Heybridge.