Shoeboxes 2011!

Seventeen years ago Samaritan's Purse started a ministry called "Operation Christmas Child" the idea was to pack a shoebox with simple gifts; personal care items and school supplies and give those shoeboxes to hurting and needy children all over the world with the message of the good news of God's love for them. That first year my son was a baby and we did one box. The 2nd year I had 2 kids so we did two boxes. As our family grew we did more boxes to correspond with each child till one day those kids said "mom lets do more!" So we did 5 boxes. Then one year one of the kids said "Ya know mom, this would be great for shoeboxes, we should save stuff all year round so we can do more." That year we did 22 boxes. The next year I got my church involved, we did 30 something boxes the first year. The following year I had another gal start saving stuff all year round and we filled 70 something. The numbers kept growing till last year we did 276 boxes! And still...

Our numbers kept growing.

As our numbers grew I needed to find creative ways to support our projects. Being part of the crafting community I looked their for help. Scrapbook Expo allowed us to run their baggage check and collect supplies and have raffle tickets for a gift basket from At the Blue Barn and a new "Scrap-n-Easel" from Contain ya crafts. Many of my scrapbooking friends came out to help at the expo as well. Local crafters came out to an event again donating supplies for boxes and buying raffle tickets for another fabulous gift basket. Plus companies such as Unibind, Creative Options, Epiphany Crafts, Craftwell, Xyron, Fiskateers, Hydrangea Hippo, Contain Ya Crafts, Faithfully Yours, MemoryWorks consultant Kemi Foresteri, Close to My Heart Consultant Lori Brown, October Afternoon and more donated make and take items, door prizes, and goodie bag items to the event! All these events (and then some) helped gather not only supplies but funds to purchase supplies and help offset the cost of shipping shoeboxes.

It's no secret, I love doing shoeboxes. It's such a simple way to reach out. Things we take for granted like soap and a toothbrush are some of the kids favorite gifts to receive and for some kids this is the first present they have every received in their lives! I also love shoeboxes because of what it allows me to do within my community. When someone decides to be a missionary to another country. They start raising support, gathering their supplies etc. They get sent on their trip and we hear about it when they get back. With coordinating shoeboxes I get a chance to encourage my church, family and friends to be missionaries right where they are at!

It's incredible to be able to help kids not just my kids or my church kids, but my nephews, and friends kids and even other kids in the community to take that step to look beyond themselves to reach out to others. It's a privilege to be able to hear "wow this was so much fun...I love helping, I can't wait to do it next year." and "I'm so glad I came, knowing that one more child gets a present cause of what I did is AWESOME!"

Well I can spill the beans! This year we packed 351 shoeboxes!!! Thank you again to everyone that helped make this possible!!!

Shoeboxes 2009

Many Many thanks to everyone that helped make our 2009 shoebox drive for Operation Christmas Child a HUGE success. Once again the Lord proved little is much when HE is in it. Who would have thought a challenge from a 7 year old boy could lead to something so exciting. Caleb watched the shoebox video last year during Children's Church and said "Miss Betsy we didn't do enough we need to do MORE...let's do 100!" Knowing that the 70+ boxes we did last year was a stretch, but God could do it said "Let's go for it!" Little did I know it was the beginning of something much bigger.

I wasn't even sure where to start collecting supplies for that many boxes. I should have know though that a way would be provided! First I was contacted by the Scrapbook Expo and asked if I wanted to run the baggage check as a fundraiser. After contacting some local Fiskateers and some other scrapbooking friends to see if they would help me, I asked if SB expo if could have Operation Christmas Child as our charity this year. Scrapbook Expo loved the idea of OCC and even promoted it on their website for us.

If that wasn't enough, Craftwell heard what we were doing and then they got onboard and donated one of their new "Ecraft" diecutting machines to use as a doorprize for those that donated to items or money towards shoeboxes. Over 1000 items were collected and $150+ in money and gift cards in just two days at the expo. Plus one lady knew we needed to wrap the shoeboxes and donated an entire case of wrapping paper to help us out.

As if that wasn't enough people kept bringing items to church. Members from a local pantry donated items. People from Fiskateers heard what was going on and sent me stuff. 3 local dentists even gave us many many tubes of toothpaste! The Louis Joliet Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution even helped us out by creating "boo-boo" bunnies out of washrags to put in the shoeboxes. It was amazing to see how many people gave what they could and how God kept multiplying it!

Supplies kept piling up and we kept having to have work day after work day just to organize things. Not to mention how many people took home boxes to wrap! It was awesome to see the Lord at work! When all was said and done our goal of 100 boxes was blown away by the reality of 235 boxes being sent to Operation Christmas Child!