Operation Christmas Child A Huge Success

SWLA beats their goal for collecting shoe box gifts for Operation Christmas Child.

Operation Christmas Child collections in Lake Charles was a huge success.  Shoe boxes filled with goodies for less fortunate children in 5 countries was collected last week and things went better than expected.

In case your unfamiliar, Operation Christmas Child is an annual event that occurs nationally.  Samaritan's Purse is the driving force behind the Operation Christmas Child initiative, During the week of November 17-24 more than 4,000 drop-off sites open across the country to collect shoebox gifts for children here and around the world. To learn about how it works click here.

Lake Charles, Sulphur and Dequincy were local drop-off locations for the shoe boxes.  In Lake Charles, The Dwelling Place, located at 1800 College Street, took on the huge job of collecting shoe box gifts.  I stopped by and dropped off a few boxes myself and before I left, I signed up to be a volunteer.

I learned a lot about what they do and how they prepare to collect the shoe box gifts.  I spoke with Jame Grooves the Area Coordinator in Southwest LA. for Operation Christmas Child and he told me it's a year-long effort to get things ready.  Mr. Grooves said they spend most of the year getting the word-out and the other half, getting shoe boxes to those who need em, right on up to collecting them and finally dropping them off.  Each year they have a goal of boxes to collect and this year it was 22,000.  I'm happy to say they beat that number, collecting more 23,000 shoe boxes!

By the way the world goal was 10 million and the U.S. goal was to collect 8.8 million shoe boxes.  Be on he look-out next year, as I will keep you all posted on when the big collection will begin.  If you, your church, group, or organization would like to participate in Operation Christmas Child call 337-405-9022.

Be a part of something wonderful, join me in volunteering and give to Operation Christmas Child!  Merry Christmas everybody!