In the spirit of giving, children and volunteers gathered at Crosshill Mennonite Church last week to fill 150 boxes full of toys, candy, and other goodies to send overseas to children through Samaritan’s Purse’s Operation
![Youth at Crosshill Mennonite Church gathered Dec. 8 to fill 150 shoeboxes full of toys, cards, and other gifts for children around the world for Operation Christmas Child.[Whitney Neilson / The Observer]](https://www.observerxtra.com/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/post_shoebox.jpg)
Christmas Child.
Lora Gerber, junior youth leader at the church said the church has been doing the initiative for years, bringing in empty boxes and encouraging the congregation to fill them with toys. She said they started doing it this way as a way to engage the children in the church community and have a Christmas party at the same time.
“The first year it was not near to this scale,” Gerber said. “I think we filled 50 boxes. And then it grew from there. Last year we filled 100 and we keep increasing our goal each year. This year we’re aiming for 150.”
In October they made apple dumplings to sell and they made almost $1,000. They used the proceeds to buy the toys and supplies for the boxes. Funds also came from the congregation.
These boxes are going to Iraq, Iran, West Africa, and Nicaragua and were sent out last week. Just last week Samaritan’s Purse airlifted 60,000 shoebox gifts to children displaced by violence in northern Iraq.
Around 10 million shoeboxes will be delivered through Operation Christmas Child this year to children in 120 countries.
“I think it’s a great way for the kids to see just how fortunate they are and to be blessed with what they are, and to realize there are so many needy children all over the world that don’t have a fraction of what we have,” Gerber explained. “So I think it really helps when they take that empty box and walk around from station to station and think about each toy they put in, that to one child this is the only Christmas present they’re going to get.”
They set up 12 tables with a variety of items. The 38 children then decided if the box they were filling was for a boy or girl and chose which items to put in. Each box got a couple toys, a toothbrush, a washcloth, soap, a generous amount of candy, a coloring book and crayons or stationary, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, and some extra goodies like sunglasses and shirts.
The younger kids made Christmas cards for all of the boxes too.
“I think when a child knows that they can give it’s really very rewarding to see how they’re anxious to fill each box,” Gerber said.
