YOU ARE HERE: Central Kentucky Home→Collections→Operation Christmas Child

Danville church collects shoe box gifts for needy children

November 02, 2005

Area residents are preparing to bring joy to a hurting world this Christmas by packing and collecting shoe box gifts for hurting children around the world through Operation Christmas Child.

Danville Church of God, 516 S. Fourth St., will be open to receive gift-filled shoe boxes during the project's National Collection Week, Nov. 14-21. Local hours of operation will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

This is Danville's eighth year as a collection center for Operation Christmas Child, a project that encourages children, families, churches and groups to fill empty shoe boxes with toys, school supplies, hygiene items, photos and personal letters, then hand-delivers them to children worldwide who are suffering from poverty, war, disease, natural disaster and terrorism.

Last year, 27,000 boxes were collected from central Kentucky. More than 7.4 million boxes were collected worldwide last year and distributed to children in more than 90 countries. This year's international goal is to collect and distribute 7.8 million shoe box gifts.

Operation Christmas Child shoe box gifts have brightened the lives of more than 38 million children since 1993.

"This simple and fun project gives people right here in this community a chance to bring a smile to the face of a child very far away from them," said Lance Kaufman, Operation Christmas Child mid-south regional director. "By taking the time to pack these gifts and pray over them as we drop them off to be sent around the world, we want to show hurting children that they are loved, and that they are not forgotten."

"This is our eighth year as a collection center, and everyone is excited to be involved with Operation Christmas Child. We are particularly pleased to see the children of our community reaching out to other kids, through this program. We pray that this year, there will be even more people in our community involved in Operation Christmas Child," said Bruce Kramp, who is volunteering as the collection center co-coordinator.

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism ministry headed by Franklin Graham.

For more information about Church of God's participation, call (859) 236-3209. For more information about Operation Christmas Child, or to receive free materials, call 1-800-353-5949 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org.

|

|

|