Catawba collects Christmas Child shoeboxes

Christmas is arriving early all over North Carolina, as local businesses, churches and homes prepare to serve as collection points for Operation Christmas Child. Soon, with the help of Salisbury volunteers, the sites will be brimming with festively wrapped shoe boxes full of gifts.

Through Operation Christmas Child, the world's largest Christmas project, Salisbury residents are packing shoe box gifts for children in more than 100 countries suffering from natural disaster, war, terrorism, disease, famine and poverty. From Salisbury, the shoe box gifts will be sorted and sent using whatever means necessary — sea containers, trucks, trains, airplanes, boats, camels, even dog sleds—to reach suffering children around the world.

Operation Christmas Child is a unique opportunity to do something as simple as packing a shoe box that will have a lasting impact on a child a world away," said Jan Gillean, Operation Christmas Child drop-off site coordinator. "We are excited about the 2009 collection season as community members have already begun packing shoe box gifts."

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, use the EZ Give donation form found at www.samaritanspurse.org.

Catawba College, 2300 W. Innes St., is the local collection site for shoe box gifts. It will accept them Nov. 16-20 noon to 2 p.m. Call the school at 800-640-5629 for more information.

To get involved in Operation Christmas Child:

- Enlist families, churches, scout troops, community groups and businesses to take part in creating shoe box gifts for needy children worldwide.

- Fill shoe boxes with school supplies, toys, necessity items, hard candy and a letter of encouragement. Step-by-step shoe box packing instructions are available at www.samaritanspurse.org.

- Sign up to join Operation Christmas Child volunteers at collection sites as part of the effort to prepare millions of shoe box gifts for delivery to underprivileged kids on six continents.

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 69 million gift-filled shoe boxes to needy children in some 130 countries.