While collection calls for Operation Christmas Child (OCC) shoeboxes are usually found in church bulletins every fall, many churches keep the collecting going year-round. OCC is an outreach ministry of Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief and Christian evangelism organization that collects and delivers shoeboxes filled with gifts to children in more than 150 countries.
First Baptist Church, Monroeville; Mount Carmel Baptist Church, West Blocton; and Pisgah Baptist Church, Selma, are each examples of year-long collectors. Each church found it could do more together than as individuals.
Shirley Horton, director of OCC collections for First, Monroeville, in Bethlehem Baptist Association, led the church to begin collecting as a group effort in 2013.
“It is just something that I have fallen in love with,” she said.
By assigning what items to bring each month, church members are able to get into the habit of picking up one or two items whenever they do their normal shopping. In June, members are collecting shoes and girls’ dresses, for instance.
‘A lot more’ shoeboxes
“Before that everyone did it individually and we always had less than 100 (shoeboxes). Then we started collecting … through the church and we’ve been able to collect a lot more.”
Mount Carmel Baptist, in Bibb Baptist Association, also pairs different items with each month, but in October it’s time to take inventory, said Phyllis Smith, wife of Pastor Robert Smith. After taking inventory Mount Carmel announces in the bulletin how many of which items are still needed.
In the three years of collecting in this way, church members have always come through with the needed items, Phyllis Smith said.
Making a schedule of items to collect is just one strategy for collecting as a church.
Sandra Reed, OCC coordinator for Pisgah Baptist, in Cahaba Baptist Association, said, “I hit the sales and I will buy whatever will go in a shoebox.”
Pisgah is a small church that averages about 15 people on Sunday mornings, but by shopping the sales and buying in bulk the members were able to collect 400 shoeboxes in 2014.
Before utilizing this “deal-shopping” mentality in 2013, Reed said, the congregation was only able to fill 20–30 shoeboxes each Christmas.
So what was the catalyst for the change in Reed’s strategy? In 2012 she went to the Atlanta OCC processing center where all the shoeboxes from the Southeast region are sorted and processed.
“It’s just that when you see the ministry (in Atlanta), you just want to do it,” she said with emotion.
Now Reed and six other women in the church embark on “a dedicated shopping venture” for shoebox items year-round. Reed even uses Facebook to notify her fellow shoppers of big sales.
This method “just works better for our church,” she said. “It’s just dedication, prayer and everything on sale.”
To learn more about Operation Christmas Child, go to www.samaritanspurse.org.
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