Samaritan's Purse move into new Coventry premises for Christmas shoebox appeal

By Peter Davison

7 December 2022

Share

The Business Magazine article image for: Samaritan's Purse move into new Coventry premises for Christmas shoebox appeal

A vacant warehouse in Coventry has been transformed into a major processing centre for a Christmas shoebox appeal.

International Christian relief organisation Samaritan’s Purse has signed a new short-term lease at Stonebridge Trading Estate, on Rowley Drive.

The site will act as a Major Processing Centre – one of four in the UK – for Operation Christmas Child, and will prepare 70,000 gift-filled shoeboxes for shipment until December 17.

The boxes from Coventry will fill eight lorries to Albania, Belarus, Central Asia, Moldova, and Ukraine, and will contribute to the 2022 global goal of reaching 11 million children in need.

Max Andrews from Avison Young assisted in a short-term lease on the site, which is owned by Warwickshire firm The Wigley Group.

The company provided the vacant site at a reduced charity rate.

Nick Cole, Director of Operation Christmas Child at Samaritan’s Purse, said: “We really can’t thank The Wigley Group enough for stepping up as we found it just in time for the Christmas appeal, and they have helped to make it safe and accessible for our volunteers to work in.

“It’s an ideal site too and easily accessible. We are also aware there is a really strong community support in Coventry and churches involved in charitable work, so we know the city will really take to this appeal.”

The Wigley Group is based in Stockton, Warwickshire, and is active in real estate acquisition, development and construction, as well as asset management of portfolios for both itself and commercial partners.

Asset Director Louis Washington-Smith, who helped Samaritan’s Purse with their move, added: “When I spoke with Nick about this site I knew how important it was, so for us to step in at a crucial time when they needed somewhere is really special for us as a local company.”

The appeal is seeking volunteers, who can offer to help online at https://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/seasonal-processing/

Pictured: The Wigley Group’s Jess Wood and Bethan Thompson, Director of Operation Christmas Child Nick Cole, and volunteers Evnika Mishchenko and Kyistina Dimova, who have both from travelled from Odesa in Ukraine

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.