For The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON — Local residents will begin stuffing shoe box gifts as part of the annual Operation Christmas Child, with organzers hoping to collect more than 2,400 gift-filled boxes.
Through Operation Christmas Child, the world’s largest Christmas project, the shoe box gifts will be sorted and sent using whatever means necessary to reach suffering children around the world.
Liberty Christian School, 2025 Hillcrest Drive, will be the local collection site, said an organizer, Cheryl Baertschi. Collection hours will be Monday, Nov. 16, to Friday, Nov. 20, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 21, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 22, from 2 to 5 p.m.
Participants are asked to fill shoe boxes with school supplies, toys, necessity items, hard candy and a letter of encouragement. Shoe box packing instructions are available at www.samaritanspurse.org.
Participants can also sign up to join Operation Christmas Child volunteers at the local collection site. Operation Christmas Child uses tracking technology that allows donors to “follow your box” to the destination country where it will be hand-delivered to a child in need. To register shoe box gifts and find out what country they are delivered to, participants can use the EZ Give donation form found at www.samaritanspurse.org.
Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child, a project of international Christian relief and evangelism organization Samaritan’s Purse, headed by Franklin Graham, has delivered more than 68 million gift-filled shoe boxes to needy children in some 130 countries.
