How much joy can you pack into a shoebox?
Enough to change a child’s life half a world away, says Canadian charity Samaritan’s Purse.
The international Christian relief and development organization has been collecting shoeboxes packed with toys, hygiene items, school supplies, and other things for children suffering from war, poverty, natural disasters, disease and famine since 1993.
It’s called Operation Christmas Child. And so far, Samaritan’s Purse has collected and hand-delivered more than 124 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in over 130 countries.
This year alone, during the 2015 Operation Christmas Child shoebox campaign that recently ended Canadians donated 730,577 shoeboxes, says the charity’s communications manager Frank King.
While it might be easier and cheaper to collect money and have the shoeboxes filled at some of the destination countries, Samaritan’s Purse wants to make sure that Canadians are fully engaged in the process, King said.
“To actually go out, get a shoebox, pack it, drop it off at a collection centre is a very meaningful experience for a great number of people,” King said. “It’s also a great teaching tool for Canadian parents to teach their children that Christmas is not just about them, it’s about them helping other children who don’t even have the basic stuff that they have.”
(click to listen to the full interview with Frank King)
ListenEvery year hundreds of churches, community groups, sports teams and businesses participate in the drive, King said.
It’s an elaborate logistical operation.
Once the assembled shoeboxes get dropped off at collection points, they get shipped to two sites – one in Alberta, the other in Ontario – where they are individually inspected to make sure that the contents will pass through customs and there is nothing dangerous or frightening for a child, King said.
Then those inspected shoeboxes get shipped to destination countries outside Canada, where local partners take over the distribution.
Distribution of the 2015 shoeboxes in the developing world has already begun. During the next few weeks, children in Haiti, Chile, El Salvador, Senegal, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Uruguay, and Costa Rica will be receiving shoeboxes packed by caring Canadians, King said.
For the second consecutive year, shoeboxes from Canada are also going to Ukraine, he said.
“In many cases these gifts from Canadians will be the very first gifts these children will have ever received in their lives,” King said. “It’s quite an amazing experience to give a shoebox to a child and watch the wonder on them and the excitement when they open up and realize that everything inside is theirs and it came from a country that in some case they may have never even heard off.”
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