A MINERS Rest family has turned the traditional Advent Calendar on its head, managing to fill dozens of Christmas boxes which will be given to those who have nothing this Christmas.
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Heather Luttrell and her family have pulled together the community to donate hundreds of items which are being distributed by Wendouree West charity Exodus in the days before Christmas.
Ms Luttrell said her family had always donated something to the 3BA Christmas appeal or to Exodus over the years, but wanted to do something a bit more this time.
“I’d heard about the idea of the reverse Advent Calendar where you add a different item to a box every day, rather than taking a chocolate out every day,” she said.
“I put it out on Facebook to see if anyone would be interested and a few friends said they thought it was a terrific idea.
“So I approached Exodus with the view that I might be able to donate five boxes, but in the end we got 74.”
Ms Luttrell said it had now become a passion project which she was keen to see develop in coming years.
“I’ve had friends from Melbourne, Geelong and Bendigo all say they’d like to get something going in their community like this as well, we’d love to see it expand in the future.
“People are just so generous, you put in items which are useful to a household or long life food items. There were even some people who were unable to donate something every day, but instead they went and did one big shop to put items in the box.”
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