Emporians are making a difference around the world this Christmas season — one shoe box at a time.
This Sunday nearly 800 filled and wrapped shoeboxes, collected from Emporia and the surrounding area for Operation Christmas Child, will be loaded onto trucks at the First Church of the Nazarene. Their destination: the Philippines, Botswana, Indonesia, Ecuador, Togo and Madagascar.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, a ministry led by Franklin Graham, the Rev. Billy Graham’s son. Every year around this time individuals and families all around the world fill simple shoeboxes with small toys, school supplies, hygiene items and other meaningful gifts.
In November, more than 8 million of these boxes are collected and sent to children in countries all over the world who are facing desperate situations like war, poverty and famine to give them the opportunity to celebrate Christmas, many for the first time.
The First Church of the Nazarene has been a local collection center for the last several years. According to Kristen Clay, a church volunteer who has helped with the project for the last three years, being involved with OCC is important for many reasons.
“It’s a good cause,” she said. “We know they go to children all over the world who need this stuff.”
School supplies, especially, are critical if children in many poor countries want an opportunity to get an education, she said. “If they don’t have school goods, they can’t go to school.”
Clay also appreciates what OCC offers to those who get involved right here at home. “Being a part provides a good example to our kids and to our community of reaching out and not being so self-centered,” she said.
Although more than 15 area churches have conducted OCC drives over the last several weeks, some families have made it a personal objective to be involved.
Keaton George, son of Shelley and Alan George of Emporia, for instance, celebrated his eighth birthday on Nov. 15. But instead of accepting birthday presents from his guests at the party, he asked his friends to bring toys and other items to fill shoeboxes for OCC.
“The kids came to the birthday party with bags and bags of things,” Shelley George said. “They were really, really excited about it.”
Although it was a tough decision for Keaton to forego birthday presents this year in exchange for helping children around the world this Christmas, he was glad he did it.
“It was cool,” he said.
With all the donations, Keaton and his friends and family were able to pack 12 shoeboxes to send to children overseas.
The Nazarene Church will collect shoeboxes until 2 p.m. today and from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
For more information or for guidelines on how to pack a shoebox go to http://samaritanspurse.org.