There's Still Time To Fill a Shoebox

If you want to help make Christmas merry for underprivileged children overseas, there’s still time to contribute.

The First Presbyterian Church on North Grove Street is serving as a collection center for Operation Christmas Child, a program that delivers shoeboxes filled with gifts to children all over the world. The collection center will continue accepting the shoeboxes through Monday. Once the boxes are collected, they will be transported to Charlotte. From there, the boxes will go to various points overseas and be distributed to children.

Chuck Emel and his wife, Sara, serve as the coordinators of the First Presbyterian collection site, which collects boxes from Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties. On Friday afternoon, Chuck encouraged everyone to consider filling some shoeboxes and bringing them to the church. The goal is to collect 15,350 boxes for this region, an 8 percent increase over last year's effort. The boxes can be filled with school supplies, small toys, hygiene items, hard candy, T-shirts, socks, caps, sunglasses and flashlights with extra batteries.

The boxes should not include used or damaged items or war-related items, like toy knives and guns. Chuck said the gifts may be simple, but they have a lasting effect on the children who receive them.

“These shoeboxes have a dramatic effect on these little kids. These are going to really poor little kids in very poor countries,” Chuck said. “These are kids that don’t have anything. Most of them have never received a gift in their life, so the fact that you would take the time to pack a shoebox and this little kid in this poor country is going to receive it is probably the gift of a lifetime.”

Chuck said he’s heard stories of children who received a box 10-15 years ago, and today they are furthering their education in the United States.

“It’s a life-changer,” Chuck said of the boxes. “When these boxes get to Charlotte, they are packed with Christian literature, and this is the first opportunity these kids have ever heard about Jesus Christ and who he is. If you want to change somebody’s life, then pack a shoebox.”

Chuck is hoping the shoebox collection picks up dramatically over the weekend. On Friday, he said the collection has been down a bit.

“Other than Monday morning, I would say it’s been slow,” he said. “We would encourage people who haven’t filled out a box to certainly think about it and go ahead and do it and get it in to us.”

The collection center will be open through Monday, November 22. People can drop off boxes Saturday from 9am-5pm, Sunday from 1-5pm and from 9am to 5pm on the final day. If you can’t make it by 5pm, Chuck says there is an alternative.

“If they miss 5 o’clock, they can take their box to Chick-fil-A, which is accepting boxes,” he said.

For everything you need to know about packing a shoebox properly, visit www.samaritanspurse.org and click on the Operation Christmas Child tab.

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