October 2022 – Farm Animal Sanctuary Halloween Fund Raiser – and final preparations for this years Link to Hope Shoe Boxes.
The Farm Animal Sanctuary
The Farm Animal Sanctuary host their Halloween Fun day on Saturday 29 October. The event runs from 11:00am – 3:00pm.
Dress yourselves up and join them for a spooky day at the sanctuary, with plenty of fun for all the family and lots of treats on offer!
Their super spooky trail will be even spookier this year Nick their Halloween expert is already thinking about spooktacular ideas .
You will also have chance to meet the rescue animals .
Come and visit our Spooky Sanctuary
Cost – child £7.50/adult £5
Link to Hope
The count down has started to complete your shoeboxes by 4 November and take them to your area receiver. I’ve already received my first delivery 😊. I’m now starting to pack mine 😊.
The content theme on the Link to Hope Calendar for October is Sweets and Chocolate. The calendar says `Who doesn’t love sweets and chocolates (EU origin, BBD June 2023)’.
For the elderly boxes I usually add a bar of dark chocolate – I tend to get Lidl’s basic dark chocolate (30p last time I bought it – but haven’t checked the price recently) or Lovett’s dark chocolate by Sainsbury at 33p, and recently Morrisons dark chocolate for 39p. (The added bonus for me is they don’t contain any milk of other animal products.)
There are lots of sweets on offer this month, but the best buy for a larger bag of sweets seems to be from Aldi – their lemon or fruit sherbet sweets are 65p per bag, or mint imperials for 49p (just be careful what you put the mint imperials next to in the shoebox 😊). Other good buys are a 4 pack of fruit pastilles for £1.00 from Tesco or Sainsburys or £1.25 in Asda or Morrisons. 5 packets of Polos for £1.00 in One Below.
Tesco, One Below, Co-op and Asda had/have 18 mini packs of Skittles for £2.00 (they were £2.49 in Aldi). B&M have the limited edition Dark Side Skittle mini packs for £1.95 for 18. Swizzles chews are 18 for £1.00 in Tesco, and Swizzles sweets are £1.00 for 18 in Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, or both are reduced to 89p in B&M. 15 mini packs of love hearts are also 89p in B&M. If you are going to divide up packs of chews between boxes it is probably best to put them in a paper or small plastic bag to avoid them leaking/melting onto other items in the shoebox.
Packing Your Shoe Boxes
Remember to remove as much packaging as possible, but I do sometimes include parts of the packaging that has the CE logo on it for toys. I don’t think it’s required but if a box is examined by customs at least it’s clear it’s suitable.
If you are including anything containing liquid such as shampoo or shower gel or children’s bubbles remember to Sellotape the top to reduce the risk of the cap opening and the contents leaking over the rest of the contents of the shoebox. Although I remove as much packaging as possible I usually contradict that by placing shampoo in a plastic bag as extra protection. I would hate for someone to open a box full of lovely items only to find they’ve been ruined by something leaking on them ☹.
Also put soap and scented candles at the opposite end to sweets, but if adding strong scented mints try to keep them away from other sweets.
Try and wrap candle holders (if glass) in tissue paper, (you could use bubble wrap but that’s harder to dispose of), and pack hats, scarves, gloves etc around them to protect them as much as possible.
This month’s bargains
In addition to the sweets mentioned above, I’ve only found a few bargains this month. Tesco had some stationery sets reduced to 40p – containing a pen, pencil, sharpener, eraser, and mini ruler. Tesco also had some small game sets which had a snakes and ladders and ludo game in for £1.00, and a mix it up game for £1.20. Poundstretcher have a retractable tape measure for 50p. Asda have scented votives in a jar reduced to 50p – they do have individual letters of the alphabet on.
Not reduced but One Below have packs of 3 pairs of children’s socks for £1.00 and the pack of 36 small toy cars for £5.00 – great to divide up amongst a few shoeboxes, and they still have 8 toothbrushes for £1.00. (In my local store they are in a cage near the tills and no longer near the other toothbrushes.)
I’ve bought some additional socks from Primark – not the cheapest, working out between 56 and 60p per pair but not too bad – I bought some white knee high girls socks and some ladies ankle socks. They still have 2 pairs of knitted gloves available for £1.00 – in addition to the black and grey ones they also had some pink and blue, and beige and rust coloured ones. Fleece men’s gloves were 2 pairs for £2.00.
Don’t forget to shop around for wrapping paper if you didn’t buy any in the sales, or use brown paper and decorate it.
You have until 4th November to take your shoe boxes to your area receiver.