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Not an ordinary shoe box

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Emily Chilson
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  This Christmas, 273 children in under-privileged countries will open gift-filled shoe boxes from Shaw servicemembers and their families. The Sumter community as a whole donated more than 3,000 shoe boxes through Operation Christmas Child Nov. 21-22. 

Samaritan's Purse began the OCC program in 1993 to provide Christmas gifts for children in under-privileged countries. Shaw began participating in 1994 and has continued to support OCC ever since. 

"Over the years a lot of churches have started to participate in this program," said Hugh Wilson, Young Adult Ministry coordinator at the Palmetto Chapel. "To my knowledge, the base chapel was the first in the Sumter area to participate in OCC." 

From here, all 273 donated shoe boxes will be taken to the OCC processing center in Charlotte, N.C., where volunteers will go through every shoe box. 

According to Mr. Wilson, volunteers at the processing center not only search the shoe boxes for inappropriate or dangerous items, but also add more items if necessary before sending the shoe boxes to their eager recipients in under-privileged countries.
 
"Every shoe box contains the Christmas story in the native language of the child who will receive it," Mr. Wilson said. "Last year 7.6 million shoe boxes were collected from 10 developed countries, including the United States, and given to children in more than 100 under-developed countries." 

Mrs. Christine Meyers and her daughters, Jocelyn and Elise, brought a gift-filled shoe box to the Palmetto Chapel during the OCC collection. 

"This is our first time giving a shoe box," Mrs. Meyers said. "We saw the OCC brochure at a cash register at the Base Exchange." 

The motivation behind OCC is the opportunity to share God's love with girls and boys in every corner of the globe, said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse. 

In one central Asian country where preaching is punishable by death, some local Christians handed out shoe boxes, resulting in 13 communities allowing a drama presentation about the birth of Jesus and 2,500 people hearing the gospel for the first time. 

"Each year, OCC delivers millions of gift-filled shoes boxes to hurting children around the world," said Dr. and Mrs. Billy Graham. "This project is personal - a shoe box gift can be as unique as the person packing it."