MORE than 2000 shoe boxes full of gifts for all ages plus 100 banana boxes of clothes have been collected by a Copplestone couple since September to go out to needy people abroad and in this country.

Adrian and June Redfern have been involved in International Aid Trust since 1992 and in that time have collected probably thousands of boxes.

This load was their third this year. It was shifted by members of Crediton Boniface Rotary Club from the room where Adrian and June store it into a lorry to be taken on up to the main warehouse near Preston.

June said what was being sent out in December was expected to go to Mexico and Cuba or needy families in the north of England or to Romania adding that a big shipping container was also going to Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

June added that prisoners would be unloading the boxes at the warehouse for onward distribution.

“It is all voluntary, only five per cent of funds raised is spent on administration, they are very cost conscious,” added June.

“This is all given by ordinary people, some knit clothes. It comes here, or I collect, from all over the place. It really is recycling big time, there are boxes of bedding. Medicines are all labelled. One or two boxes are specifically for an orphanage,” she said.

“People are truly amazing, it is about people who have good hearts,” she said. She added that while the boxes go out all through the year, there are probably more at Christmas.

She and Adrian now have a brief respite when their big room is their own for the family and the Christmas meal.

Sue Read