Operation Christmas Child opens stations in Landmark, Blumenort, Grunthal

As Christmas approaches thoughts of giving become top of mind for most Canadians. One of the ways people from the Southeast can give is to Samaritan’s Purse’s Operation Christmas Child.

“There are more than 100 countries that receive our shoeboxes,” said Frank King, news media relations manager for Samaritan’s Purse Canada, which operates Operation Christmas Child. “Canadian packed shoeboxes go to Central America in places like Costa Rica and El Salvador, also goes to West Africa like Senegal, and Ukraine and Philippines.”

The Canadian packed shoeboxes contain things like toys, school supplies such as pencils and crayons, personal care items such as a toothbrushes, clothing, crafts, and activity based items such as skipping ropes or balls with a pump for children aged two to 14 years old. People can also include a photo of their family and a letter. There is a fee per shoebox of $12 to cover shipping costs.

Items that cannot go into a shoebox are candy, playing cards, toothpaste, gum, used or damaged items, scary or war-related items such as toy guns, knives, or military figures, chocolate or food, seeds, fruit rolls or other fruit snacks, drink mixes (powdered or liquid), liquids or lotions, medications or vitamins, breakable items such as snow globes or glass containers and aerosol cans.

For those who can’t pack a shoebox themselves, they can visit packabox.ca and pay for a box to be filled on their behalf. Cost for that is $44 per box.

“We want them to know that, number one, Canadians know they are living in difficult situations and Canadians have not forgotten them. Number two, as a Christian organization we want them to know that God has not forgotten them either. When they receive this shoebox from someone they’ve never met, from a country they may never have heard of, it’s a powerful reminder that they are not forgotten by Canadians or by God and there is a reason to have hope,” said King.

Last year, Canadians filled more than 425,000 shoeboxes with gifts.

Operation Christmas Child started with a couple in Wales who wanted to give boxes filled with items to children in Bosnia during the Yugoslavian civil war in the early 1990s. The operation grew too big for the couple so they passed it on to Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief organization, in 1993. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has collected and distributed more than 220 million shoebox gifts in more than 130 countries.

Drop-off locations for shoeboxes are: Landmark Christian Fellowship Church between Oct. 22 and Nov. 23 on Tuesday between 3:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. and on Saturday between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.; Blumenort Community Church between Nov. 18 to 24 on Tuesday between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. and on Thursday and Friday between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m., and on Saturday between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.; and Grunthal Bergthaler Mennonite Church between Nov. 18 and 24 on Tuesday and Friday from 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., on Wednesday between 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., on Saturday call Frieda to arrange a time, and on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.