BIG-HEARTED parishioners at a Bolton church have Christmas all wrapped up with a message of care for needy children.

The congregation of St William of York Church, Lever Edge Lane, will be making their presents felt in the Balkans this year after hundreds answered the call to help desperately poor youngsters as part of Operation Christmas Child.

The church is a regular supporter of the appeal which sends plane-loads of boxes full of presents for traumatised youngsters in poverty-stricken and war-ravaged Balkan countries such as Romania, Bosnia and Albania.

And when the call when out through the parish magazine in August, donations just came flooding in.

Church-goer and worker for the charity group Catholic Aid For Overseas Development (CAFOD) Pauline Darcy said she and 14 others were responsible for putting the presents together and wrapping a total of 202 boxes.

"It was a quite a task but one we were only too pleased to do," said Pauline.

"The response has been phenomenal. People have donated toiletries, warm clothes and toys for the boxes and we know they will be really appreciated by the children.

"Some of them have absolutely nothing and we have been told that some of them still cling to their Christmas boxes a year later."

Pauline added: "Last year we collected 150 boxes so we have done a lot better this year and with everything that has happened over recent weeks it really is good to show others that people still care."

ON THE BOX: Father John Hitchen of St Willam of York Church, Great Lever, shows off some of the hundreds of Christmas boxes collected for less fortunate children in troubled European countriesRef: j3359-35