The packing party was organized by USI Religious Life and other faith-based campus student organizations and worked alongside Operation Christmas Child Tuesday in the basement of the David L. Rice Library. Attendees packed shoeboxes to send as Christmas presents to children in poverty-stricken and war-torn areas.
By the end of the event, volunteers had filled 82 shoe boxes. The goal was 100.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse that spreads the Christian gospel by giving children shoe boxes full of gifts at Christmas time. When children receive their shoe boxes, they are told the story of Jesus and God’s love. Then, everyone opens their boxes together.
Ben Smith, event organizer, said, “We [Operation Christmas Child] want to just provide a tangible opportunity to show God’s love and our love to them.”
Afterward, the organization offers children a 12-week Bible study program to learn about Christianity if they wish to.
The shoeboxes contain school supplies, clothes, notebooks, small toys and a “wow item,” such as a soccer ball or a teddy bear.
Smith recounted a story about Eve, an 11-year-old boy from a war-torn country in Africa, who could not go to school due to a lack of pencils and received some in his shoebox.
He said when Eve’s classmates asked him where he got the pencils, he said, ‘From people in the United States who loved him and packed a shoebox just for him.’
“That brought him a lot of joy and a lot of excitement,” Smith said.
In addition to supplying children with gifts internationally, the organization helps children in the United States.
According to Samaritan’s Purse, parents use the project to teach their kids about giving.
Samaritianspurse.org has an option to build a box online.