TORONTO – Operation Christmas Child is an annual project by Samaritan’s Purse – a Christian relief and development organization with a goal of showing children suffering through war, famine, disease and poverty that they are not forgotten.
“Operation Christmas Child started in 1993,” Sherri Petrovich, Regional Manager, Operation Christmas Child GTA told Global News. “It’s a hands-on, tangible way for people to get involved in helping someone else. “
Simple shoeboxes are being filled with little things that will have a huge impact on children in countries like Haiti, El Salvador and Guatemala among others.
“Things like school supplies and hygiene items,” Petrovich said.
“And then, of course we love to have the kids be really excited about getting a special toy, so we like to put in things that are going be fun for them to have because kids are kids.”
Everyone can get involved with the project from schools to families to organizations, a simple way of showing you care to someone in need.
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“Last year Canadians packed 664,000 shoeboxes,” Petrovich said. “Worldwide, more than 11-million shoeboxes were packed.”
Across the country, thousands of volunteers work annually at collection centres — including the North Toronto Christian School — making sure that all boxes are properly packed and inspected before being shipped internationally.
“It’s incredible to see the joy in their faces when they open these boxes,” Petrovich said. “ For some of them, it’s the first gift they’ve ever received. In some of the really poor countries, it makes such a difference for them.
“Just giving some hope to a child, maybe who had lost everything in a war.”
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