Fill the box for those in need
Operation Christmas Child gives presents for the holidays

Matt Tomekwicz |staff writer
 
Every year children around the world wait anxiously for that one day, Christmas. In developing countries many families struggle to provide the basics, yet alone Christmas presents. Operation Christmas Child is one program which hopes to shed light on children worldwide this Christmas season.

Fill a shoebox

St. Michael's gift wrapping shoebox night for Operation Christmas Child. Photo courtesy of Mary Thon, InterVarsity Moderator

Operation Christmas Child has been the answer to providing small gifts to children whose parents can’t afford to. Through the generous donations of families and volunteers, shoeboxes or small plastic containers are filled with toys, candy and other goodies for children.

St. Michael’s students took part in making shoeboxes this year. A relatively new organization on campus known as InterVarsity is an interdenominational organization, which does ministry across the country on college campuses. Meghan Kerrigan says InterVarsity is an up-and-coming campus organization offered to all St. Michael’s students.

“The program covers a variety of things,” Kerrigan says. “They held seminars on connecting God with everyday life, to service trips, to leadership training."

The Christian Fellowship chapter at St. Michael’s ran a gift-wrapping party in which students made the boxes. Sophomore Emma Stenburg says the group did it on a smaller scale last year and wanted to expand it to the campus this year.

“We did Operation Christmas Child last year, and it was nothing like this year,” Stenburg says. “We had a wrapping party here at St. Mike’s and we ended up getting over 100 shoeboxes and over 100 people attended.”

Students stand proud next to their donations. Photo courtesy of Mary Thon, InterVarsity Moderator

As students eagerly wrapped their shoeboxes and filled them with goodies to send overseas, InterVarsity had a video playing which showed where the boxes go. The video highlighted a number of different countries around the world in which Operation Christmas Child affects.

The shoeboxes pour in from collection sites all over the United States to regional distribution centers. These centers organize the shoeboxes into different categories according to the children’s age and gender. This ensures that an appropriate gift box is well received by a child who needs it the most.

Burlington connection

This year, Burlington Vt. has been added to the list of the drop off locations for Operation Christmas Child. Shoeboxes were collected at the Light Radio Station in Colchester.


The entire program is sponsored by an organization known as Samaritans Purse. This association has been running for the past 35 years and is based out of Georgia. The movement is spearheaded by CEO Franklin Ghram, who followed in his father’s mission to serve others, according to the Web site.

Samaitian’s Purse prides itself on its commitment to help the marginalized. Mary Thon, adviser for the St. Michael’s chapter of InterVarsity, said that Samaritan's Purse goes into areas with natural disasters and wars and give people the relief they need. In addition to adding everyday supplies to the shoeboxes, the message of the Christmas story is also included within the box, Thon says.

“Because Samaritan's Purse is a religious organization, besides giving aid to children around the world, they want to tell people about the Christmas story,” Thon says. “They include the Christmas story in the language of the country within the box.”