Twenty-four Marion County residents from five churches kicked off their Christmas season by processing shoeboxes filled with toys, school supplies, toiletries and other useful items, such as clothing and tools, at the Dallas, Texas Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child processing center. Volunteers nationwide celebrate the birth of Christ by filling a shoebox for a boy or girl (ages 2-4, 5-9 or 10-14) with simple gifts. These are brought from a collection point to a drop-off center, including Goss and New Hope Baptist Churches, and are then on their way to a processing center.
This year Marion County donated nearly 4,000 boxes. The Marion County group helped process over 65,000 boxes each of the three days they worked. At the processing center, items deemed inappropriate for shipping or as gifts, such as liquids, glass items, candy, or war related items, are removed and replaced with suitable items if needed. Volunteers then seal the boxes and sort them by age and gender to be shipped around the world with the angel’s message of “good news of great joy, which will be for all people!”
