Operation Christmas Child boxes
Published: November 6, 2005
Brownwood area residents are invited to participate in an international holiday program that will benefit more than 7 million suffering children in more than 90 countries on six continents.
Operation Christmas Child, the largest program of its type, is now asking volunteers to fill shoe boxes with items to be shipped around the world. Brownwood area residents may participate by preparing boxes and delivering them to the local relay center at Coggin Avenue Baptist Church.
“Our members have done this for a number of years, but this is the first time Coggin Avenue Baptist has served as the local relay center,” Elaine Hedges, who is coordinating the collection effort here, said. The national collection week is Nov. 14-20. Boxes are needed by then to allow for distribution before Christmas.
The collection hours that week at the Christian Life Center will be from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday; and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
For many of the children, the shoe box gift will be the first gift they have ever received.
A year-round project of hope and encouragement, Operation Christmas Child delivered an early Christmas in the summer of 2005 to more than a quarter million children devastated by the tsunami in Southeast Asia.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, the international Christian relief organization ranked three times by SmartMoney magazine as America’s most efficiently run charity. Headed by Franklin Graham, Samaritan’s Purse is currently working in some 100 countries to provide relief and aid to victims of war, natural disaster, famine, disease and poverty.
Children, families, churches, scout troops, schools, civic clubs and businesses are already filling their shoe boxes now. This fall, shoe box gifts can be dropped off at one of more than 1,800 drop-off sites located in all 50 states. National Collection Week is Nov. 14-21. Information and other drop-off sites are available by calling (800) 353-5949 or visiting www.samaritanspurse.org. After Nov. 21, shoe box gifts should be mailed to Samaritan’s Purse, 801 Bamboo Road, Boone, N.C. 28607.
More than 7 million shoe boxes filled with personal gifts, school supplies, candy, necessity items, family photos, and notes of encouragement will be prepared by millions of individuals in 11 countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and New Zealand
Samaritan’s Purse national partners will hand-deliver the shoe box gifts to more than 7 million children in more than 90 countries.
Operation Christmas Child began in the United States in 1993 with 28,000 shoe box gifts. Since then, the kids-helping-kids project has collected more than 39 million shoe box gifts and hand-delivered them to needy children in some 120 countries.
People interested in donating should find an empty shoe box and decide whether it will be for a boy and girl and what age range — 2 to 4, 5 to 9 or 10 to 14. Then label it. Fill with small toys, school supplies small hyigene items and other items like hard candy, socks and T-shirts. Do not include used, war-related or perishable items, liquids, medicines or breakable items. Boxes do not need to be wrapped, but can be, and lids should be wrapped separately. Complete information is available on the Web site.
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