Grant High School Year 9 student Isabelle Jones is hoping to inspire others to give to charity following her recent involvement with the Samaritan’s Purse’ Operation Christmas Child.

The charity distributes shoeboxes filled with toys, hygiene items, school supplies and gifts to children in need in over 100 third world countries.

Miss Jones said she organised the drive through Mount Gambier Presbyterian Church, involving her school to donate 12 shoeboxes worth more than $300 to the cause.

“There are so many great causes out there and I feel like not enough people know about them so I thought if I included the school with it, it could encourage more people to help out,” she said.

“I thought it was just a nice thing to do.

“They all go to underprivileged kids, and they make big events out of it.

“There’s lot of videos about it online, it’s really cool to see the actual revealing of the boxes and the reactions are priceless.

“They have nothing practically, so we make sure everything is good quality.”

Miss Jones said everyone could see the process as the boxes were made by hand.

“Everyone could see the process being made because people donated a lot of items as well, so they know that objects are given directly from them to a child in need,” she said.

“People think there’s a lot of money that goes into it and not enough boxes, but we make sure everything that we get is really good quality stuff so they can keep it forever,” she said.

“So instead of having money come in and it goes out, I made all the boxes by hand and I thought that it would be nice to get the school involved as well.”

This is Miss Jones’ third time taking part in Operation Christmas Child as she previously gave to the cause in 2019 and 2020 during her time at Moorak Primary School.

Miss Jones said she believes COVID-19 has financially affected charities.

“There’s many just smaller scale charities and even local businesses that have had a big impact from COVID,” she said.

“If you see a charity that’s kind of desperate do not just look over it because every cent counts.

“Even just donating your old clothes to op shops because stuff you see as no good anymore might be the best thing for someone else.

“The world’s pretty cool at the moment with helping everyone else out but I just want to encourage more of it because you can always make a difference even if it’s something you do not really think about, you can always make a difference.”

“People nowadays are really fortunate, and I feel like it’s not recognised as much that other people are not as fortunate and that we have so much that we could give.

“I think we need to get out there a bit more and encourage giving to others.”