Operation Christmas Child

The World's Largest Christmas Project


What?
Some 8 million suffering children in more than 90 countries on six continents will receive personal, gift-filled shoe boxes through this kids-helping-kids project. For many of these children, the shoe box gift will be the first gift they have ever received.



When?
Now through Christmas 2008 . . .

Kids, families, churches, scout troops, schools, civic clubs and businesses are filling their shoe boxes now. This fall, shoe box gifts can be dropped off at one of more than 2,200 collection sites located in all 50 states. National Collection Week is Nov. 17-24. To find the nearest location, call (800) 353-5949 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org. (After Nov. 24, shoe box gifts can be mailed to Samaritan's Purse: 801 Bamboo Road, Boone, N.C. 28607.)



Who?
Millions Worldwide

Caring individuals, families, schools, churches, civic clubs and other organizations in thousands of cities in all 50 states and 10 additional countries will fill some 8 million shoe boxes with personal gifts, school supplies, candy, necessity items, family photos and notes of encouragement.

More than 130,000 volunteers worldwide, including some 100,000 volunteers in the United States, will join forces to prepare the boxes for transport to distant lands.



Where?
To Timbuktu and Beyond. . .Literally

The shoe box gifts will be filled and donated by millions of individuals in 11 countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Samaritan's Purse and its national partners hope to hand-deliver the shoe box gifts to 8 million children in more than 90 countries.

In 2007, children in the town of Timbuktu in West African country of Mali received shoe box gifts for the first time.



How?
By land, air, sea, and camel . . .

The shoe box gifts are inspected and prepared for overseas shipment in 6 major centers across the United States: Boone, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; Minneapolis; Atlanta; Dallas; Denver; Orange County, Calif. Then, the shoe box gifts are loaded onto some of the world's largest cargo planes, trucks and sea containers bound for the far reaches of the earth.

Once the gifts are transported to countries around the world, Samaritan's Purse teams and partners transport them by truck, bus, train, helicopter, boat, foot, dog sled, mule and even camel to hand-deliver the gifts to hurting children.



History?
Operation Christmas Child began in the United States in 1993 with 28,000 shoe box gifts. Since that time, the kids-helping-kids project has collected more than 61 million shoe box gifts and hand-delivered them to needy children in some 130 countries, including:

Hurting children stricken by poverty in war-ravaged Sudan (2007)
Children in war-torn Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries (2006)
Young survivors of the horrific tsunami in Southeast Asia (2005)
School children attacked by terrorists in Beslan, Russia (2004)
Ugandan children devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic (2002)
War orphans in Kosovo (1999), Bosnia and Croatia (1995-1996), and Rwanda (1994)
Children in Honduras and Nicaragua left homeless by Hurricane Mitch (1998)


Did You Know?
Every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan has packed an Operation Christmas Child shoe box gift.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse, ranked multiple times by SmartMoney magazine as America's most efficiently run religious charity. Headed by Franklin Graham, Samaritan's Purse is currently working in some 100 countries providing relief and aid to victims of war, natural disaster, famine, disease and poverty.