Children in Fiji receive gifts from Operation Christmas Child.

Children in Fiji receive gifts from Operation Christmas Child.

Group collects 11,300 gift-filled shoeboxes in Kent area

  • Monday, December 5, 2016 12:46pm
  • Life

Kent and surrounding cities volunteers collected gift-filled shoeboxes to reach more than 11,300 children through the Samaritan’s Purse project, Operation Christmas Child.

This record-breaking collection surpassed last year’s Kent-area donations of 10,659 gifts, according to a media release The Operation Christmas Child South King County Area Team thanks the Kent community for their donations already on the way to children worldwide. For many of these children, the shoebox gift delivered through this local project will be the first gift they will have ever received.

Although local collections have finished for the season, there is still time to pack a gift-filled shoebox online for children suffering from poverty, natural disaster, war, terror, disease and famine. Like online shopping, visitors can browse samaritanspurse.org/occ to select gifts matched to a child’s specific age and gender, then finish by uploading a photo and writing a note of encouragement to be included in the shoebox they build online. They can also follow their box to discover where it will be delivered.

These shoeboxes – filled with school supplies,toys, hygiene items and notes of encouragement – are delivered to children in some of the hardest-to-reach countries around the world.

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization. Since 1993, the group has collected and delivered more than 135 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in more than 150 countries and territories.




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