The world’s largest Christmas project of its kind, Operation Christmas Child uses gift-filled shoeboxes to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to needy children around the world.
Since 1993, the Samaritan’s Purse project Operation Christmas Child has collected and delivered more than 100 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in more than 100 countries. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Operation Christmas Child expects to collect another 9.8 million shoebox gifts in 2013.
Individuals, families and groups fill empty shoeboxes with gifts of toys, school supplies, hygiene items and notes of encouragement. During National Collection Week, Nov. 18-25, 2013, Samaritan’s Purse will collect the gift-filled shoeboxes at more than 3,500 drop-off sites in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
Operation Christmas Child also offers the opportunity year-round to pack personalized shoe boxes online. Go to samaritanspurse.org and click on Operation Christmas Child to build a box by selecting toys and gift items, writing a note of encouragement, and “packing” them in a shoebox.
After the boxes are prepared for overseas shipment at eight major processing centers across the United States—Atlanta; Boone, N.C.; Charlotte; Dallas; Denver; Honolulu; Minneapolis; and Orange County, Calif.—Samaritan’s Purse and its partners will deliver the gifts to children in more than 100 countries on six continents.
Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts are collected in the United States, Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
More than 500,000 volunteers worldwide, with over 100,000 of those in the United States, are involved in collecting, shipping and distributing shoebox gifts.