Operation Christmas Child 2013

My box

This year me and my partner decided to take part in Operation Christmas Child, a project run by the charity Samaritan's Purse. Every year nearly a million children and adults across the globe wrap and pack shoe boxes full of gifts to send to disadvantaged children in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. If you want to join in this year you don't have long left-just until Monday.

How it Works

1) Order or download resources like leaflets and boy/girl stickers for your box from the OCC website.
2) Find a medium sized shoe box and wrap it with Christmas paper, sticking your label on the lid (top right hand corner).

All packed up.

3) Decide what gender and age (2-4, 5-9 or 10-14) of child you are making your shoebox for and go shopping for gifts. You should include a few items from each category below:

• Toys-soft toy, ball, puppet, jigsaw, yo-y building blocks, toy instrument, car, doll, clip on earrings, skipping rope, etc.
• Stationary-pens and pencils, pencil sharpener, eraser, colouring book, notepad, chalk, pencil case, stickers, calculator etc.
• Hygiene items-hair brush, hair clips and bobbles, toothbrush and toothpaste, bar of soap, flannel etc.
• Other items- sweets (with sell-by date of at least March next year), gloves, scarf, cap, sunglasses, bangles, necklaces etc.

PLEASE DON'T INCLUDE: Food or chocolate, medicines of any kind, war-related items (such as toy guns, soldiers and knives), items of a political nature, clothing (other than listed above), fragile items, liquids, aerosols, sharp objects, books with many words, hand made stuffed toys without a CE mark.  

There are also loads of great ideas of what to include on Pinterest.

4) Fill your shoe box and include a Christmas card or letter if you wish.
5) Include a £3 donation to cover shipping or pay online so you can track where your box is delivered.
6) Secure your box with an elastic band and drop it off at your nearest collection point before Nov 18th.

Then all the shoe boxes are taken to processing centres to be checked by volunteers and shipped off to be distributed to children who may have never received a Christmas present before. Another option is to fill a shoebox online at Shoebox World.

Our Boxes

This year I packed a shoebox for a little girl aged 5-9 years. We got most of our items from Tesco, B&M and Poundstretcher.
Here's what I included in mine:

The contents of my shoebox.

1) My Little Pony neon bright collectible.

2) Box of coloured chalk (Tesco).

3) Colgate 6+ toothpaste.

4) Pretty butterfly stationary set (Tesco).

5) Panda gloves (B&M).

6) Nivea soap x 2.

7) Tesco alphabet gummies.

8) Me to You colouring book with crayons (B&M).

9) Pretty Princess hair brush with bobbles (B&M).

10) Butterflies and flowers stickers (Tesco).

11)  Little Charley Bear teddy.

12) 6 mini glitter gel pens (B&M).

13) Sparkle girlz doll (Wilko's).

Matt's shoebox.

14) Pink stripey notepad (Tesco).

15) Aquafresh "my big teeth" toothbrush.

Matt packed a shoe box for a boy aged 5-9 years. Here's what he included:

1) Cars drinks bottle (Poundstretcher).
2) Wooly hat and football gloves (Poundstretcher).
3) Moshi Monsters collectibles x 2.
4) Tesco alphabet gummies.
5) Aquafresh "my big teeth" toothbrush.
6) Go create 500 animal stickers (Tesco).
7) Blue stripey notepad (Tesco).
8) Clear plastic pencil case (Tesco).
9) Crayola crayons.

The contents of Matt's shoebox.

10) Colgate 6+ toothpaste.
11) Tesco Everyday Value soap x 2.
12) Wooden crocodile ruler (Tesco).
13) All star yo-yo (B&M).
14) Tesco mini series toy car.

We also both included a Christmas card that said a little about ourselves. Apparently there are usually translators at the presentation events.

This was such a fun activity to do and I'm excited knowing that our boxes will soon be on their way to a little boy and girl in time for Christmas. It's very satisfying to imagine the look on a child's face when they open up their box, I really hope they enjoy their gifts.

What do you think of our efforts? Have you ever done Operation Christmas Child?