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Community Corner

Marietta Community Packing Shoebox Gifts for Operation Christmas Child

With the Holiday season just around the corner, being thankful and remembering those in need seems to be on everybody’s mind. This is also the time when families begin packing gift-filled shoeboxes for children in need all around the world through Samaritan’s Purses’ Operation Christmas Child.

This year in Marietta, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church on Johnson Ferry Road, Marietta First Baptist Church on Church Road and Sandy Plains Baptist Church on Sandy Plains Road are serving as a drop-off location and they are collectively hoping to collect 20,000 shoebox gifts from the local community to be shipped to orphans and children whose families can’t provide for their basic needs in impoverished and war-torn areas in Africa, South and Central America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Since it’s beginning in 1993, Operation Christmas Child has brought hope to over 100 million children living in desperate situations in120 different countries all around the world.

Many families have created new holiday traditions, encouraging their children to pick out the gifts to pack. For most of the children who receive the shoebox gifts, this gift will be the first they have ever received.

The story of Betty, a 10-year-old child in Uganda who received a shoebox gift through Operation Christmas Child, illustrates just how powerful this gift can be. Betty was visiting her cousin who invited her to the shoebox distribution. When she received a shoebox gift that day, she was so touched that tears began flowing from her eyes. When the volunteers asked her why she was crying, she said she could not believe all the items in the box belong to her. She shared a story of how she missed school for a week because she did not have a pencil to use.

For Betty and other children to receive shoeboxes, the power of a simple gift and a message of hope helps them understand that they are loved and not forgotten.

National Collection Week is November 18-25.

If your family would like to pack a shoebox for a needy child this year, you can drop-off your boxes Monday, November 18 – Monday, November 25 at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, 955 Johnson Ferry Road, Marietta 30068 or Marietta First Baptist Church, 148 Church Street, Marietta 30060 or Sandy Plains Baptist Church, 2825 Sandy Plains, Marietta, GA 30066. Other drop off locations and a complete listing of drop-off times can be found here: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/operation-christmas-child/drop-off-locations/.

More information on the program and instructions on how to pack a box are available at: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child.

You can also “follow your box” to see which country it goes to by clicking here: https://www.samaritanspurse.org/operation-christmas-child/follow-your-box-iframe/.

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