FORT WORTH – Bet you didn’t know Santa’s Shop was in Fort Worth! A group called Arise Africa is making their list, and checking it twice before sending boxes, and boxes…and boxes of swag bags to kids in Zambia.

“They don’t get any Christmas packages, they don’t get any gifts,” said executive director of Arise Africa Alissa Rosebrough. “So once a year we do this for them, so on Christmas Day they have something to open.”

As you can tell, they’ve got to get a pretty early jump on things to make sure the bags arrive by December. Turns out the transatlantic shipping process isn’t quite as fast as Rudolph.

“It takes six months on a container ship to get over to Africa,” Rosebrough said. “So we start this process in May, collecting items and getting everything ready, and they’ll be shipped out in early July.”

Arise Africa has a team of leaders in Zambia that helps distribute the bags once they hit the ground. Even though it’ll be quite a while before these boxes are re-opened, volunteers say the smiles are well worth the wait.