Operation Christmas Child

SANDERS COUNTY - During the Sanders County Fair the Community Congregation Church hosted its “Operation Christmas Child” booth, which was used as a staging ground for children to make Christmas shoebox presents that will be shipped around the world to needy children.

Operation Christmas Child is a project where a typical shoebox is filled with a small toy, school items, hygiene items, and other small gifts. During the third week in November, boxes that have been prepared are collected at sites across the nation and then delivered to third world and developing countries for children during the holiday season. The program is sponsored by the Samaritan’s Purse International Relief Aide Group.

The Community Congregation Church provided everything necessary for children at the Sanders County Fair to load Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes full of gifts to be delivered to children, free of cost.

CarolAnne Webb, who is running the program for the Sanders County area, described the process of collecting money from businesses and individuals and then using the money to buy supplies for the production of the shoeboxes.

“I physically went door to door. Last year we raised enough funds to do 185 shoe boxes and then we got donations at the fair and did 26 more. So this year I went back to the businesses who I had already talked to and all of them were able to donate again and I also got to quite a few more I hadn’t got to last year.”

Once Webb had raised as many funds as she could, she ordered enough items to fill 240 boxes with small gifts for boys and girls. She laid out all the material under the booth at the fair, and opened it up to the public to grab a box and go through the mountains of items to produce a gift.

Webb said, “We had what we call our shoe box packing party so everything was set out that would normally go into the shoe boxes and the kids could take an empty box and then they could write a little note with their name and in the off chance that one of the receiving children had an interpreter and they could thank them.”

After Webb had ordered the material to make 240 boxes, she said she received more money from a few businesses and that it was worth about 60 boxes more worth of presents.

The material Webb bought for the packing party was bought 80% locally.

“We are supporting local businesses. We are buying 80% of the material that are going into the shoe boxes and we are try to teach children how to give.”

Webb described how the 240 boxes created at the fair will be added to a larger grand total that will be made by the third week of November. She said individuals can produce a Christmas shoebox full of presents and explained that during that week, the Community Congregation Church will be the collection center for all of Sanders County.

She said, “Our area we sent over 600 out of Sanders County and this year we will probably be pushing 1000.”

From the Community Congregation Church, Webb said the boxes will be brought to Missoula where they are loaded on a truck and shipped to Denver, Colorado.

“And the Denver distribution center primarily sends our boxes to Central Mexico and South America,” Webb said.

The cost of the boxes average around $15 with an additional fee of $7 that will be used for shipping and handling. At the collection site the $7 dollars will be collected.