Volunteers collect gift boxes for needy children

Gifts will be sent around the world

Local volunteers are ready to collect simple shoebox gifts personally packed by children, families, and individuals here in Elizabeth City and surrounding areas.

“This year is the eighth year we have been collecting shoeboxes in this area and during these past seven years we have collected over 25,000 shoebox gifts,” says co-director, Barbara Fletcher.

As Fletcher said, this is the eighth year the Evangelical Methodist Church has been a collection site for receiving the shoeboxes. From Elizabeth City, the shoebox gifts will be sent by Roadway Truck to Charlotte and there will be sorted and sent using whatever means necessary to reach suffering children around the world.

Local collection sites are Evangelical Methodist Church, 820 Okisko Road, Elizabeth City, 264-2254, ext.34; Edenton Baptist Church (Relay Center), 200 S. Granville St., Edenton, 339-3474; and Kitty Hawk United Methodist Church (Relay Center), 803 W. Kitty Hawk Road, 261-2062; New Life of Currituck, 4483 Caratoke Hwy., Barco, 232-3259.

Right now, you can join the effort to help the world’s largest Christmas project hand deliver some eight million gift filled shoeboxes to children in more than 90 countries suffering from natural disaster, war, terrorism, disease, famine, and poverty.

You can get involved too. Enlist families, churches, scout troops, community groups, and businesses to take part in creating shoebox gifts for needy children worldwide.

Fill shoeboxes with school supplies, toys, necessity items, candy, and a letter of encouragement. Step-by-step shoebox packing instructions are available online at www.samaritanpurse.org. You can also sign up to join Operation Christmas Child volunteers at collection sites in Elizabeth City, Edenton, and Kitty Hawk as part of the effort to prepare millions of shoebox gifts for delivery to under-privileged kids on six continents.

Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child, a project of international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse headed by Franklin Graham, has delivered more than 61 million gift-filled shoeboxes to needy children in some 130 countries.

For more information on how to participate in Operation Christmas Child, call (252) 264-2254 or (252) 330-2745. National collection week is Nov. 16 through Nov. 23.