CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.,—Christmas is arriving early all over Tennessee, as local businesses, churches and homes prepare to serve as collection points for Operation Christmas Child. Soon, with the help of Chattanooga volunteers, the sites will be brimming with festively wrapped shoe boxes full of gifts.
Through Operation Christmas Child, the world’s largest Christmas project, Chattanooga residents are packing shoe box gifts for children in more than 100 countries suffering from natural disaster, war, terrorism, disease, famine and poverty. From Chattanooga, 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.
“Everyday, kids around the world are just hoping that something good will happen,” said Bartlee Norton, Relay Center Coordinator for Operation Christmas Child. “Kids facing poverty, war, and disease need to know that they aren’t forgotten. Packing a shoe box is a unique way we can reach into the lives of children living in some of the most desperate places around the world and let them know, their life matters.”
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 what country they are delivered to, use the EZ Give donation form found at www.samaritanspurse.org.