Each year Operation Christmas Child collects and distributes Christmas gifts for MILLIONS of children living in poverty across the globe. The materials needed to start your gift box will be available at Bethel’s Outreach Center October 26-November 23. Please return your shoeboxes to the Outreach Center by Sunday, November 23.
This is a life-changing experience for many children around the world. Learn more about OCC and new options, including the online Build Your Box option, below.
How to Pack a Shoebox
We encourage you to prayerfully pack shoeboxes full of toys, school supplies, and hygiene items for children in need around the world. If, however, getting out to a store is difficult for you, consider building a shoebox online! You can still select the items you want to include in your box and personalize it with a note and photo. Many of these shoeboxes are delivered to hard-to-reach areas to share the Good News in a culturally sensitive way.
How You Can Help
- Pack a box. Pack 2 boxes. Pack 10 boxes! And challenge your friends and family to do the same. Return them to Bethel by Sunday, November 23.
- Build a box online. Build multiple boxed online!
- Make a donation online to help cover shipping costs. A donation of $10 will cover the shipping of someone’s box and ensure it gets delivered to a child.
- Volunteer to help. Stop by the OCC table on a Sunday morning to ask one of the volunteers how you can get involved locally.
- Follow Your Box! Every shoebox needs a $10 donation to provide for collecting, processing, shipping, and other project costs. If you make this donation online, you can Follow Your Box and receive a tracking label.
- Pray for every box that goes out. Records show that the chances are incredibly high that the child that receives your box will receive Christ for the first time. These children really will change the world.
What is Operation Christmas Child?
Operation Christmas Child, the world’s largest Christmas project, brings joy and hope to needy children around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes and the Good News of God’s love. Since 1993, more than 232 million children in more than 170 countries and territories have received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox. The project delivers not only the joy of what, for many kids, is their first gift ever, but also gives them a tangible expression of God’s love.
Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan’s Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ.
