For years now we have supported Operation Christmas Child by packing shoe boxes full of goodies to send to children in developing nations. This year we packed 1 box for each member of our family, so that’s 5 boxes – 2 for girls (ages 10-14) and 3 for boys (ages 5-9)! We wish we could do more, but this year even the 5 boxes is a bit of a stretch for us. What makes us go ahead and s-t-r-e-t-c-h to make it work is that we know the huge impact these little boxes can have in a child’s life.
All in all, with the $7 donation to cover the shipping cost of each box, and all the things we put inside of them (mostly things from the dollar store), we spent about $100, which really isn’t bad – $20 per box. To see some more detail about the process of packing the boxes and the kinds of things we put into them, take a look at the Pack A Box info form (pdf download) or visit the OCC Pack A Box page directly.
A friend of mine, who is one of the organizers for our Operation Christmas Child “Stuff a Box Day” and a volunteer with OCC drop off locations, sent me this video. It really touched my heart!
Would you consider supporting Operation Christmas Child this year? There is still time to stuff a box, or to donate supplies or money toward the box packing efforts. Please visit Operation Christmas Child, or OCC Canada (though as of this writing, the Canadian site is down, but I hope it will be fixed for tomorrow), for more details and to find a drop-off location near you.
By the way, our church stuffed 2300 boxes in one day at our Stuff A Box Day, and including those we’ve collected nearly 5000 boxes so far. Once we drop off our 5, that will make it 5005 (ish)!
At our church, we do this every year, too. We're a small church, so we usually only get about 50 boxes packed.
BUT, we also have some older folks who don't really want to shop or do the work, and they donate money, either for box shipping or to purchase animals.
Last year, we bought 5 goats (plus the shipping)! It was really cool and fun.
That's awesome, Tanya. 50 is still GREAT!
One year, instead of swapping gifts with our extended family, we thought it would be cool to pool our money and buy some goats or something instead. We paid for pre/post natal care for women in Senegal, bought a couple of sewing machines, and 10 ducks! It was cool! I'll be blogging about that later!!
Thanks for the reminder! I have printed out the directions & will definitely get my boxes done this weekend. Just have to find some shoeboxes! We have done this in the past but not for the last few years.
WOOT – you go Merry!! We didn't do it last year either (time kinda just got away from us), but our church is a huge supporter of OCC and it's been front and center since the middle of October!