If you’re one of the hundreds of Hancock Countians who have ever packed a shoebox with gifts for a child overseas and wondered what happens to it next, Gary and Sally Nicholson can answer that question.
Last year the New Palestine couple volunteered at a processing center near Chicago for Operation Christmas Child.
“It’s like Santa Claus’s workshop,” Sally Nicholson said. “They play praise music. … It’s an amazing, amazing process that takes place.”
“Just the people’s excitement and the atmosphere — it’s great!” Gary Nicholson said.
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Through this outreach by Samaritan’s Purse, boxes filled with gifts, hygiene items and school supplies make their way around the world to millions of children.
People in various Hancock County congregations have been filling shoeboxes and turning them in as National Collection Week continues.
Among them are a group from Mercy Road Church Northeast in Fortville, who gathered Wednesday to fill shoeboxes. Also, children in the AWANA program at Brandywine Community Church set aside time for filling them during their Nov. 11 meeting. And Curry’s Chapel United Methodist Church gathered its shoeboxes Sunday.
Two Hancock County sites, Mt. Comfort Church and Evangel Christian Church, are receiving boxes until Monday morning. From there, boxes at Evangel will go to Southport United Methodist Church to fill cartons and be loaded onto semis. Boxes at Mt. Comfort Church will be taken farther north up Mt. Comfort Road, to the Fishers campus of Grace Church, to be grouped into cartons.
The cartons hold about 24 shoeboxes and are unloaded at one of eight processing centers across the United States. At these centers, volunteers in an assembly line make sure each box contains all it should and doesn’t hold any inappropriate items. Guidelines from Samaritan’s Purse prohibit packing war-themed toys, for example.
Also among the no-nos are liquids, including sanitizer, and toothpaste, which was permitted in the past but is not now — the ministry cites increasing customs regulations. Sally Nicholson said if volunteers find such items, they’re placed in a bin and donated to a shelter in the area.
“There’s not anything that goes to waste,” she said.
Box reviewers also make sure the box’s contents check the boxes of major categories. Is there a “wow” gift, such as a toy or stuffed animal or ball? Are there personal care items such as a comb, washcloth and/or a bar of soap? Are there school supplies?
If a box is missing something, there are extras on hand to add, Sally said.
Each hour, work pauses as volunteers are urged to stop and pray for the children who will receive the boxes. Flags on display indicate where the day’s boxes will go. The day the Nicholsons volunteered, the boxes were bound for the countries of Namibia and Chile.
After checked boxes are bound with tape and packed into cartons, they’re loaded on trucks and driven to an airport to fly to the designated country.
Some recent back issues for Gary are keeping them away this time, as volunteering requires a lot of standing, but the work at processing centers will continue this year, even amid COVID-19. In instructions to volunteers posted online, the ministry is requiring face masks and plans to design assembly lines with socially distant spacing.
Pickup at local sites has seen adjustment, too. Rose McKinney, who leads collection at Mt. Comfort Church, said in an email that masked, gloved volunteers have gathered boxes curbside this year rather than having those donating bring them in. A QR code for scanning allows donors to register on their own phone instead of using a pen at the church.
The international relief ministry, led by the Rev. Franklin Graham as its president, also notes that as shoeboxes reach their destinations in more than 100 countries, staff and volunteers will work within local COVID-19 protocols.
It’s a challenging year to send out the shoeboxes, but “In the midst of the pandemic, the needs are greater than ever before,” Graham said in a press release. “Children around the world need to know that God loves them and there is hope. A simple shoebox gift opens the door to share about the true hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ.”
The Nicholsons got involved in filling shoeboxes several years ago, when they lived and worshiped in another community. The pastor’s wife at the church they attended introduced the program, and the Nicholsons were moved by it.
That interest intensified over the years as they heard stories of its impact from others. Their daughter, for example, worked at a Christian college in Missouri. A student there had grown up overseas and received a shoebox as a young girl. Now that young woman helps organize a shoebox drive at the college.
“She still has this letter,” from those who sent the box, Sally said. “It changed her life. It introduced her to the Lord.”
They also heard years ago from a young woman at church who went overseas to help distribute the shoeboxes. Despite careful checking, the team was one box short when it got to the village — but that one box, Sally recalls her friend saying, went to two siblings and contained duplicates of everything.
“Only God can do that,” Sally said. “Cool story after cool story. It just gives you goosebumps and brings tears to your eyes.”
The Nicholsons hope to volunteer again at the processing center in the future and say their experience last year fueled an even greater passion for collecting shoeboxes.
“It’s killing us” not to go this time, Sally said. “It did fan the fire.”
These days they lead the shoebox drive at Brookville Road Community Church in New Palestine, where more than 200 shoeboxes were filled this year.
“We realize it’s touching people,” Gary said. “It’s touching families and in some cases a whole village.”
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Two local collection sites for Operation Christmas Child will receive boxes through Monday morning. Donors are asked to fill a shoebox with gifts, including toys, school supplies and hygiene items. Here are the available drop-off hours.
Evangel Christian Church, 1221 E. Main St., Greenfield
- Saturday (Nov. 21): 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Sunday: noon to 4 p.m.
- Monday: 8 to 10 a.m.
Mt. Comfort Church, 3179 N. County Road 600W (Mt. Comfort Road), Greenfield
- Saturday (Nov. 21): 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Sunday: 2 to 4 p.m.
- Monday: 9 to 11 a.m.
Online: You can skip a trip by packing a box online at samaritanspurse.org/occ.
Where does it go? For those who want to know where their shoe box ends up, a tool online allows box donors to pay the $9 shipping online and print a tracking label to affix to their box. The donor later receives an email with the name of the country.
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Find out more about volunteering at a processing center at https://www.occvolunteersignup.com/. Volunteers must be 13 or older. Volunteers ages 13-17 must be accompanied by a chaperone responsible for no more than four youths.
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