The Barloworld Handling-supplied Hyster forklift carrying shoeboxes of gifts for Samaritan Purse's Operation Christmas Child campaign.

Barloworld Handling has supplied a forklift to help international development and relief charity, Samaritan's Purse, with its Operation Christmas Child campaign in Wrexham.

The charity has one of its largest operations in Wrexham, where Barloworld provided a forklift from its local short-term hire fleet. For the last three years, a Hyster 2.0FTS diesel forklift has been used for four weeks during the operation's busiest period before Christmas.

"Wrexham is where Operation Christmas Child started 19 years ago and the campaign has grown tremendously in that time," says Samaritan's Purse head of operations and logistics Ian Macleod.

Last year, over 1.2 million shoeboxes packed with gifts were wrapped, packed and sent to disadvantaged children worldwide. The shoeboxes were donated by the public at over 1,700 outlets across the UK, which were then collected, checked and sorted at 70 processing centres.

This year, the charity is expecting over 50,000 shoeboxes to pass through the Wrexham depot.

"After the shoeboxes arrive, they are checked, placed in cartons and then palletised. It is an impressive logistics operation that relies heavily on the time given by volunteers and the added generosity of the local Barloworld team in Wrexham," Macleod explains.

The Wrexham operation uses the two tonne Hyster forklift to help manage the storage and loading of the pallets onto lorries and containers. Over 300 volunteers help process the boxes, which are then exported to children in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.