Operation Christmas Child is an amazing project put on by Samaritan’s Purse every year around Christmas time. The purpose is to share the love of Christ around the world through a gift-filled shoebox. People and churches from all over take the time to fill shoe boxes with toys and hygiene items and donate them to this organization. The boxes are then processed and shipped all over the world to children in need. On Wednesday, November 21 I had the privilege of serving at the Operation Christmas Child processing center in Charlotte, NC.
The night before, six of us set out for Asheville for the night. One of our friends were kind enough to open up their house to us so we wouldn’t have to leave ETSU at 5:00 am the next morning. The car ride was great! I took the liberty of creating a playlist of 1,000 songs of various genres so there would be some variety. We belted out everything from Frank Sinatra to Hannah Montana to Christmas music.
After staying the night in Asheville Tuesday, we left for Charlotte at 6:30 am, jamming to Christmas music and playing MASH the whole way there. We finally arrived at about 8:45 and got in line to check in. Once we were checked in, we went into an orientation room where they explained all of the different jobs we could do: pre-inspecting, inspecting, taping, scanning, and cartonizing. The pre-inspector’s job was to take any donations out of the box and place them in the donation box. The inspector then searched through the box looking for things that couldn’t be shipped like liquids and war related items. If they ever had to take something out, they filled it with something else to ensure each child get’s a full box. After inspection, the box is taped by the taper and handed off to either the scanner or the cartonizer. If a box had a “Follow Your Box” label, the scanner would scan it and the carton it was sorted into, so the person who sent the box would know where it ends up. The cartonizer sorts the boxes based on age and gender, placing them into cartons.
After orientation, we got pulled aside and were asked to go help at the collection area. This is where different families and churches drop off boxes to be processed. After working there for a little while, we worked at the main processing stations switching jobs every so often. I have always been on the shoebox filling side of the ministry, so it was awesome to see how everything was processed and sent out around the world.
Operation Christmas Child was a great opportunity not just to serve the community, but to serve all of the children around the world that will be receiving a shoebox this Christmas season. I love the Samaritan’s Purse organization, and I can’t wait to volunteer with them in the coming years!
(35/40 total service hours complete)
Going To Mars (Well, ETSU for now, but a girl can dream.) 