Gift boxes sought from residents, churches

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Santa may have workshops popping up all over Sycamore, as local businesses, churches and homes prepare to serve as collection points for Operation Christmas Child.

Soon, with the help of Sycamore volunteers, the local collection site will be brimming with festively wrapped shoe boxes full of gifts.

Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child, a project of international Christian relief and evangelism organization, Samaritan’s Purse, headed by Franklin Graham, has delivered more than 68 million gift-filled shoe boxes to approximately 130 countries.

Local organizers hope to collect 950 gift-filled boxes in the Sycamore area.

Gifts inside can include school supplies, toys, necessity items, hard candy and a letter of encouragement. More instructions are available at the Web site below.

Through Operation Christmas Child, Sycamore residents can give shoe box gifts for children in more than 100 countries suffering from natural disasters, war, terrorism, disease, famine and poverty. From Sycamore, the shoe box gifts will be sorted and sent using whatever means necessary – sea containers, trucks, trains, airplanes, boats, camels, even dog sleds – to reach suffering children around the world.

Operation Christmas Child uses tracking technology that allows donors to “follow your box” to the destination country where it will be hand-delivered to a child in need. To register shoe box gifts and find out to which country they are delivered, use the EZ Give donation form found at www.samaritanspurse.org.

National collection week is Nov. 16-23. Gifts can be brought to First Baptist Church, 530 W. State St. in Sycamore during the following times: 1-4 p.m. November 16, 10 a.m.-noon and 6-8 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Fridays, 1-4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday and 8-10 a.m. on November 23.

For more information, call 815-895-3116.

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