Operation Christmas Child

I don't know if any of you are interested, but I thought I'd post on the off-chance you are. :)

If you're looking for a "good samaritan" thing to do this Christmas, consider Operation Christmas Child. We're doing this in our MOPS group, and I wish I had known about it sooner, I'd have done it yearly!

Basically what you do is fill up a shoebox (or shoebox sized box) with goodies that a child might like. You pick an age/gender group and wrap the box with festive paper, and put all the goodies inside. Then you stick a label on it saying what gender/age group the box is for, take it to a participating location and they mail it off to a deserving child.

What I did was I went to the dollar store and got about $40 worth of stuff for two girls, ages 2-4 (I chose that because that is what I am familiar with. *lol* And there were a couple things in there for Syd, too... lol) and I got things like coloring books, little plastic Care Bear toys, a teddy bear for both, stickers, a cute kids' lantern and a Hello Kitty box to keep their crayons in. Some other girls in my MOPS group have gotten hygiene things like soap, hairbrushes, toothbrushes/toothpaste, a washcloth... that sort of thing, and we'll pool these items together to form boxes. Our goal is to make 10 boxes from our table alone.

Here is the website with information on how to go about it.

It is a faith-based operation, so little things like Christian books and kids' bibles are also acceptable. They go to places like remote locations in Africa, war-torn places like Iraq, and east Europe where the population is very, very poor and a lot of the children don't have *anything* at all.

At the risk of sounding like a silly salesman... join me in making some kids happy! :) Sydney had fun picking out some of the items (and we had a few meltdowns - which is why there were a few things in the basket for Syd, too), involve your kids! A lot of them like making boxes for someone their age and gender. Get into the Christmas Spirit, you ol' Bah Humbug!

Comments

[Tracy]

Hi Lynn,
We've been doing this at my church since I've been going. It's a great program....very rewarding to know that one more child in the worlf might have at least a few happy moments because I took a little bit of time to think about them.
I'm glad to know the program is widespread.

[Jenn Hughes]

Hey Lynn-
I'm loving your enthusiasm!!! Can't wait to see the fun items you have tomorrow. And I think our table is going to end up with a lot more than 10 boxes! Yipee!! :) See you tomorrow.
Jenn