{"id":19625,"date":"2015-12-08T12:54:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T20:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/kent-collects-record-number-of-gifts-for-operation-christmas-child\/"},"modified":"2016-10-21T11:40:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T18:40:28","slug":"kent-collects-record-number-of-gifts-for-operation-christmas-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/kent-collects-record-number-of-gifts-for-operation-christmas-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent collects record number of gifts for Operation Christmas Child"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of children will soon experience the joy of Christmas, thanks to the Kent community.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Residents packed empty shoeboxes with small items like toys, school supplies and hygiene items for Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan’s Purse that sends gifts to children living in difficult situations around the world.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kent volunteers and residents contributed to the South King County Operation Christmas Child Area Team collection of more than 10,600 shoebox gifts for the project this year, a record over last year’s area collection of 7,739 gifts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For those who missed National Collection Week, you can still get involved. Through the Samaritan’s Purse website, you can virtually “pack” a shoebox, allowing anyone with a computer or mobile device to provide a tangible gift to a child a world away.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At samaritanspurse.org\/buildonline<\/a>, visitors can select a child’s age and gender, shop through an online selection of culturally relevant gifts, and finish by uploading a photo and writing a note of encouragement to the child who will receive it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After the shoeboxes are packed and sent by the Operation Christmas Child team, participants can discover where in the world their gifts will be delivered. It is a convenient yet meaningful way to join in a project that brings hope to children in need.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The virtual-packing tool also offers participants the option to challenge friends to participate or the opportunity to share the gift of giving through a shoebox gift card.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization. Since 1993, the project has delivered gift-filled shoeboxes to more than 124 million children in more than 150 countries and territories.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of children will soon experience the joy of Christmas, thanks to the Kent community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":19626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19625"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}