I’ve been had some level of involvement with operation Christmas Child for a lot of years now. About 6, I think. Sometimes just serving at the processing center and/or packing shoe boxes, sometimes volunteering on a more in depth level, but no matter my involvement, I adore serving with this organization!!!
OCC is one of the most well run organizations I have ever had the joy of being involved with. Everything they do, they do well. Whether it be allowing you the giver the opportunity to connect with the receiver, training at the OCC processing facilities to how they invite churches and organizations into partnering with them, and their marketing (I adore their marketing!), they do it all well, and to the glory of God. In a society where doing what you do with excellence and on the up and up is rare, I am so grateful for the few organizations that still place a high priority on this. Every step of dealing with OCC is streamlined and easy. They make it an absolute joy and privilege to serve and give alongside them.
Another reason I love being involved with OCC, is it’s just easy. I know that shouldn’t be a huge priority…but let’s be honest, when you have several kids, a to-do list a mile long courtesy of the inevitably crazy holiday season, having a simple yet hands on way to get your kids involved in giving for the holidays is a BIG deal!
Each year my kids look forward to getting to pack up their boxes. They love watching the promotional videos provided by OCC. And they love when the email comes of where our box is going to researching and learning more about the country.
With our adoption to Kyrgyzstan, they are hoping one of our boxes will go there!
One of the biggest reasons we participate in OCC is to help spread the gospel. Each child receives a booklet going over the good news of Jesus. We also hope to play a part in giving them more than just cheap trinkets (although a few of those are always included!), but somethings that they need. The base of my boxes is almost always a full size notebook, crayons, pencils, and a pencil sharpener (all bought during back to school sales). I hit the toiletries and travel toiletries (found in most stores, and often in the $1 section) and usually pick up soap, toothbrush, tissues, and anything else that pops out at me. I head over to the clothing section and grab a couple packs of socks to divide up up between the boy boxes and girl boxes. Then, depending on if it’s a boy or girl I pick up some fun things. In years past, when I had more time I did more ambitious things like make a fort kit, and tutus. Now days, with packing at the very least 6 boxes, I’m all about purchased items.
Because of this there are some bulk items that are great for us to purchase and place in our boxes. This year, I’ve found some great stuff on Amazon
Even though I may get more than what I need to go in our boxes, I’ll either keep them for next year, find someone to go in on ordering the items with me, or use it to justify packing more boxes! I saw the idea of giving the cinch sacks somewhere to help the kids carry all the items they received. I thought it was a great idea, and wanted to be sure to include it! They had some fun and less expensive camouflage ones, but we aren’t supposed to include any war-related items so I’m avoiding the camo to be safe. I also found some fun dress up stuff for girls, like pretend pearl necklaces, wands and bracelets, and then some toy cars and glider planes for the boys.
We usually pack ours in the small plastic Sterilite containers found at Target or Walmart as we never seem to have enough large shoeboxes around. While I’m in the store picking up the last few items to finish off the boxes, I just pray and ask God to lead me to something the kids may need. Sometimes nothing hits me, other time an item pops into my head and I just know I’m supposed to get it. I trust God to get it in the right box and get it to the right person, but I always want to leave room for the Holy Spirit to move in how we pack the boxes.
A few years ago I found this sheet, and my kids have loved filling this out for each of their boxes to share a little bit about themselves. We carefully arrange all the items in the boxes (this is always quite the art form), put the lid on and attach our pre-paid shipping label that will allow us to know where our boxes went.
Before we turn in the boxes, we pray over them. We ask God to get the items into the right hands, and that the kids receiving the box would be open to hearing about Him and Jesus.
The we take them to a drop-off location. There are several of these near us, but since I usually serve at the processing center, which is also near me, I often just hold on to them until then.
Participating in OCC is one of the highlights of our families holiday season! I love starting the holiday season off with giving! If you or your family haven’t had the joy of participating in packing shoeboxes before, I hope this will encourage you to consider it! I promise, once you start with one it become contagious and you just want to PACK ALL THE BOXES!
Thank you so much for this post, Kate! My son and I will be going to Charlotte for the first time this year to help in the processing center and we’re so excited! We used your links to print out the pages for inside our boxes and to pay for the postage so we can track our boxes. Thanks again!