Christmas charity underway
By Emily Brown
Samaritan’s Purse holiday operation offers students opportunity to give
Ecstatic — Operation Christmas Child has a long history of impacting people around the world during the Christmas season. Photo provided
With Halloween in the rearview mirror and University Boulevard quickly taking shape as a winter wonderland, students at Liberty are now turning their focus to the Christmas season. In less than a week, Liberty will begin its first “LU Shoebox Blitz” in connection with Samaritan’s Purse for the organization’s annual Operation Christmas Child initiative.
According to Liberty sophomore Ellen Ferguson, president of Liberty’s newly founded Operation Christmas Child club, the university will collect shoeboxes Monday, Nov. 10 through Friday, Nov. 14. The goal of the initiative is to send shoeboxes filled with Christmas gifts and necessities to children all around the world as a way of spreading the gospel.
Students will be able to pick up boxes from the Vines Center following Convocation Monday, as well as at “Shoebox Central” — a tractor-trailer and tent located in the bookstore parking lot. Shoebox Central will also serve as the drop-off location all week.
Boxes can include items such as small toys, toiletries and personal notes or pictures, along with $7 to cover the cost of shipping. Students and others filling the boxes can choose to send the shoebox to a girl or boy, age 2-4, 5-9 or 10-14. Boy/girl labels can be downloaded at samartianspurse.org/occ. The $7 shipping fee can also be paid on the site, which gives the added bonus of being able to track that box.
According to Amy Hassenpflug, faculty advisor for the Operation Christmas Child club, these boxes have the potential to show millions of people God’s love.
“What we think of when we think of what we’re putting in the box and it means to us is nothing in comparison to what it means to the children,” Hassenpflug said. “Some of them have never had a gift. They’ve never had something new. … But beyond the joy of … having things to play with and a way to comb your hair or brush your teeth or whatever, that’s nothing compared to the eternal difference it can make with each box. It can be that child, their friends, their family. It can be a life-changing difference for lots of people.”
Liberty’s goal this year is to collect 5,000 boxes to send to children across the globe who likely would not receive gifts during the Christmas season,
according to Ferguson.
While the university has collected boxes for Operation Christmas Child for years, this year marks the first time an entire week of events focused on the collection will take place. In addition to some unique marketing in the form of dozens of dancing shoeboxes, different activities will take place every day of the Nov. 10-14 week.
According to Ferguson, Monday will serve simply as a box distribution and collection day for those who jump on board with the initiative early, and Shoebox
Central will be open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
On Tuesday, all on-campus students are encouraged to gather supplies from nearby stores, such as Ollie’s, which will stay open late that night, and pack and drop off
boxes with their prayer groups during the approved late-night activity. Shoebox Central opens at 11 a.m. and will stay open until 1 a.m. Tuesday.
Wednesday marks red and green day, during which the first 200 students to drop off packed boxes while wearing red or green will receive Chick-fil-A coupons. Shoebox Central will again be open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
Students who visit Shoebox Central Thursday evening may be greeted with Operation Christmas Child T-shirts and entertainment in the form of a dance-off. Shoebox Central will be open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
To cap off the “LU Shoebox Blitz” Friday, collection volunteers will treat students to a Christmas party featuring pizza, an ugly sweater contest, prizes and music. Shoebox Central will open at 11 a.m. and will shut down at midnight with the most important event of the week — the prayer and dedication of all the shoeboxes collected.
Hassenpflug encouraged Liberty students to carefully consider the importance of each box, rather than the cost, when thinking about participating this year.
“It (shouldn’t be), ‘Can I afford to do it or what do I have to give up to make myself able to do a box or two or three,’ but ‘What eternal difference might I be making with my contribution,’” Hassenpflug said.
Students who get involved with the campaign are encouraged to use the official #LUshoeboxes on social media.
To get more information on the Operation Christmas Child charity, visit samartianspurse.org/occ.
Students interested in volunteering during the “LU Shoebox Blitz” and anyone with questions about the weeklong initiative at Liberty should email lushoeboxblitz@gmail.com.
Brown is the editor-in-chief.