Students Send Gifts And Love In Humble Shoeboxes

PRISCILLA GREEAR, Staff Writer

Published: November 18, 2004

ATLANTA—Catholic parishes and schools are forming a yuletide coalition with Scout troops, other churches and civic organizations across North Georgia for Operation Christmas Child, where they’re stuffing shoeboxes with gifts to be shipped to suffering children around the world.

The project is sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse international Christian relief organization, which sends gifts to an estimated 7 million suffering children in some 95 countries on six continents around the world. They’re shipping boxes for boys and girls in various age categories filled with personal gifts, school supplies, candy, hygiene items, family photos and notes of encouragement.

Queen of Angels School in Roswell has been participating in the project since opening in 1999, and this year their 56 kindergarten students are leading the project and inviting others in the school community to participate. They filled boxes with things like small toys, small stuffed animals, school supplies, dolls, puzzles, toiletries, Slinkys, notes and pictures, and watched the video that shows delighted children around the world receiving gifts.

“They really know they’re helping somebody else. In the video are pictures of children receiving boxes so it gives them an idea of the reaction they’re going to get. They really like seeing that and to know someone else is going to have a good Christmas because of that,” said Ellen Howe, religion coordinator. “Every once in awhile they get a note back.”

Howe said the theme this year at Queen of Angels is living one’s faith. “We teach the corporal works of mercy and try to put them into action and make our kids aware of the need for this kind of thing and to know when you help someone else you’re helping Jesus,” she said.

Also in Roswell at Blessed Trinity High School, campus minister Jocelyn Givens reports that they are having a “huge response” to Operation Christmas Child, initiated there by the sophomore class officers, and that many students are bringing in more than one box for the school-wide toy drive, which counts towards their required hours of service. Some students aren’t separately wrapping the tops and bottoms of their boxes, as “it’s a little bit tricky,” but they had a packing and wrapping party this week. They’re encouraged to reflect on the value of the gift for the unknown, impoverished child and pray for him or her. “I think it’s going to be powerful to see all the boxes in one place, just to get them thinking about the children outside their little circles and communities and to challenge them to be more grateful for what they have,” Givens said.

She added that in December they’ll also be collecting foods in homerooms to make Christmas dinners for area families in need identified through selected parishes.

Samaritan’s Purse was named the most efficiently run Christian charity in America by SmartMoney magazine in 2000-2003 and is headed by Franklin Graham. OCC is the world’s largest international children’s Christmas project and involves some 100,000 volunteers worldwide. Countries served through OCC include Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of children are suffering from starvation and political persecution, and Beslan, Russia, where school children were attacked in September by terrorists. Samaritan’s Purse staff and partners will hand deliver the shoebox gifts, the first some children have ever received. They transport them by truck, boat, plane, helicopter, donkey, dog sled, even camel. Gifts are inspected and prepared before overseas shipment in six centers, including Atlanta, across the United States. This year staffers hope to collected 140,000 gifts from Atlanta.

Livia Satterfield, who lives in Atlanta with her adoptive family, knows the value of the program. “When I was living in an orphanage in Romania, I received my first present ever—an Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift,” said the 17-year-old. This year, Livia is packing shoebox gifts to send to other children in need. “I remember the happiness I felt when I was given my shoebox gift. Now, I want to give another child that kind of joy.”

Then there is the Sudanese refugee James Luom, who fled his village in the late ‘80s as it was raided by militants. He was one of 36,000 boys who made it to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, where they lived for four years until they were once again uprooted by civil war and forced to walk over 1,000 miles to Kenya. There they found a safe refugee camp in which to grow up but survived on one meal a day. Luom recalls in 1999 receiving an OCC gift. “It was kind of funny because at first I thought it was just a shoe box and I was happy to receive that as a gift,” he recalled. “It wasn’t until I was back at the camp that I opened the box and realized there were presents inside.”

His box held school supplies and shoes, which he gave away because they were too small. Another refugee gave him his pair that fit. “God really took care of me,” he said. “I thanked God for this gift from a person I have never seen.”

When he arrived in the United States in 2001, he was wearing those shoes. He’s now on his feet, in college in North Carolina, and last year he filled his own shoebox for the program, which was delivered to his war-torn homeland.

In 2003 children in New York sent off more than 80,000 shoebox gifts in one of the world’s largest planes to Sudan.

“The project is simple, but the impact of having someone a world away tell you you’re not forgotten can be life-changing,” said Chad Geist, regional representative for OCC.

OCC began in the United States in 1993 with 28,000 shoebox gifts. Since then, the “kids-helping-kids” project has collected more than 31 million shoebox gifts. Other countries served include Uganda, where children have been devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In 2002, U2’s Bono and HIV-positive teen Lesley Clementi joined OCC in airlifting 80,000 shoebox gifts to kids suffering from the disease there. They’ve also gone to Bosnia and Croatia, Rwanda and Honduras and Nicaragua where children were left homeless by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Every president since Ronald Reagan has packed a shoebox.

Back at Holy Redeemer School in Alpharetta, fourth-graders are also busy packing and are making a field trip to deliver their boxes to the warehouse. “I love this project. I know (each box) is going where it says it’s going,” said Rosanne Bowen, religious education coordinator.

Noel Young, a parishioner at Corpus Christi Church, Stone Mountain, has been participating in the project with his RENEW prayer group for five years and said in the past their boxes have gone to Central America, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ghana. The prayer group of 12 likes to pack boxes this year for the 10-14 year olds, as more boxes are collected for the little ones. “We’ve always taken the road less traveled and done the older age group,” he said. “They say nothing with a strong religious flavor. Many times we pick up T-shirts at Sam’s that might say Atlanta Falcons. We try to stay away from ones with American flags because they’re going to foreign countries.”

Young plans to volunteer again this year at the collection warehouse, sorting and inspecting boxes, five or six days plus a weekend, and plans to recruit a parish confirmation class to get service points. He also helps prepare Christmas baskets at his church, and after Christmas he enjoys feeding the homeless at Central Presbyterian Church’s shelter. “I’m thinking about my children and grandchildren and how much they get for Christmas, and you think about these kids and that’s all they get and for some it has to last the whole year,” he said. Within the prayer group “it promotes a certain camaraderie, and at the same time we’re doing something proactive. It’s very positive for us.”

Samaritan’s Purse is providing relief and aid to victims of war, natural disaster, famine and disease. Among countries served year round is Sudan, where since 1997 the organization has operated a surgical hospital treating thousands of patients each month. The group has also opened two other medical facilities in eastern Sudan, including one location where hundreds of tons of food have been distributed monthly. In the Nuba Mountains, it has developed agricultural projects covering 7,000 acres and provides teachers and materials for several schools.

In Afghanistan, Samaritan’s Purse was one of the first non-government organizations to enter after the fall of the Taliban. In the war-ravaged city of Kholm, it established the only hospital, helped build more than 1,000 houses for returning refugees, and built or repaired six schools. It also established a school and vocational training center in Zaranj in western Afghanistan.

For information on how to participate in OCC, call (800) 353-5949 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org. Official shoebox collection week is Nov. 15-22. To find the nearest location, call (800) 353-5949. After Nov. 22, shoebox gifts should be mailed to Samaritan’s Purse: P.O. Box 3000, 801 Bamboo Road, Boone, NC 28607.