If you've never heard of Operation Christmas Child (OCC), it is an project by Samaritan's Purse where you fill a shoebox with toys and other simple items as gifts for a young boy or girl in an impoverished country. You can find out more on the Samaritans Purse website, and you can read about my packing party here.
I encourage you to get involved with OCC by packing a few boxes this year. If you've been involved for a few years, and want to do something a little more, hosting your own packing party is a great way to do that! It's really not as hard as it seems, and it's a lot of fun for everyone involved!
1.) Decide all of the normal party details.
- Where will you host the party? We had the party at my house, but you may want to have the party at a bigger or more accessible location.
-Who will you invite? A good number of guests depends on how many shoeboxes you plan on making, how long you will be packing for, and how big your space is. I ended up having seven girls (counting myself), although I invited a lot more. Another thing to take into account is that some people may not be able to come, so plan accordingly when you make your guest list.
-When will you host your party? Obviously, weekends work best. Try to pick a day where you can have a whole morning or afternoon free. Which leads to the next question...
-How long will your party last? Again, this really depends on how many boxes you're planning to pack, and how many people will be there. My party lasted 4 1/2 hours, with seven people, and we were able to pack 108 boxes.
Next, decide some more shoebox-related things for your party.
-How will you collect items to fill the shoeboxes with? Likewise, how will you collect shoeboxes?
-Do you want to pack all types of shoeboxes or focus on just one age range/gender category?
The goal of our party was 160 boxes. The number stemmed from the fact that I will be turning 16, so since 16 was much too small for us, we just added a zero. I felt it wasn't an unreasonable number, but something still quite large to reach for.
I decided that all of the party guests could bring items to donate to the shoeboxes. Of course, I picked up as many items as I could. I spread the word about the party amongst my friends and church, and many, many people donated items. Their donations were so vital, and the party could not have been such a success without them.
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| 'GO' Box |
For shoeboxes, a good idea might be to purchase "GO boxes" by Samaritan's Purse (find them here). They are not too expensive, and depending on how many shoeboxes you need, they could be an awesome resource. I went around to a few local shoe stores about a month before the party, and asked if they could donate empty shoeboxes for this project. One store did, and I ended up getting about 60 boxes from that store! :) The rest were donated from family and friends, and we ended up buying some plastic shoebox-sized containers from Target as well.
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| Shoe box labels |
*Girl, 2-4 years
* Girl, 5-9 years
* Girl, 10- 14 years
* Boy, 2-4 years
* Boy, 5-9 years, and
* Boy, 10-14 years.When you have all of this decided, you should start collecting supplies for the party as soon as you can. The more time you have, the better chance you have of reaching your amount of needed items.
2.) Next steps, a few weeks before the party:
- Create and mail invitations for your party. List all the usual party info (Time, Date, Place, Etc.), but also explain what the party is for and what you will be doing. If guests need to bring something, let them know, and be specific! "Bring shoebox packing supplies" may not be helpful. List some ideas of things to bring (You can get ideas from the Samaritan's Purse website), or assign each guest to a specific item or age group. Don't forget to mention what NOT to bring. Think about whether or not you'll want to include letters/photos in your shoeboxes. The kids receiving the boxes really enjoy getting letters inside, and if you include your address, they just might write back! I received a letter last year from Africa. (: If you do want to include letters/photos, you'll want to tell your guests to bring some wallet-sized photos of themselves. Or, you could plan to take pictures at the party.
- Order supplies from Samaritan's Purse. They have so many great resources that were a big help to my party. I ordered a Project Video and Resource DVD and a Party Pack. The party pack included stickers, prayer bookmarks, a hosting guide, and a bunch of other fun supplies. The DVD has 30+ videos and clips you can show at your party (not to mention having a good time watching them all by yourself!).
- Shop. Try to figure out how many items you will need, and plan accordingly. I've found that my average amount of items per shoeboxes is between 15-20 items, depending on the size of the box. If your goal is 100 shoeboxes, that means you'll want to collect at least 1500 items. Don't be afraid to ask for donations! (: Family and friends might be more than willing to help you shop, and local businesses might help too. For example, our dentist was able to donate a bunch of toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste for us to pack.
- Shipping donation. Decide how you will raise money for the $7 shipping donation for your boxes. There are a number of ways you can do this, whether through fundraising, or asking your guests to donate, or coming up with a creative way of your own.
- Drop-off. You'll also need to figure out where and when you will drop off your boxes. We brought ours into our church the following Sunday, since our church was collecting shoeboxes from congregation members and storing them until National Collection Week. During National Collection week, you can find a drop-off location near you, or you can ship your boxes year round to the National Distribution Center.
3. A week before the party:
- Check your guest list. Call people if they haven't RSVP'd. It makes party planning so much easier if you know what size group you are planning for.
- Start figuring out how you will set up your space. I'll explain more about how we did this at my party in a bit. You'll need to decide how you'll set up the items to use, where you'll be packing, and where you'll be storing finished shoeboxes.
- Check to make sure that you have all the materials you will need.
- Determine a schedule for your party. Like I said earlier, you'll probably want to spend a few hours packing boxes. It is really a lot of fun, and the time will fly by! I'll talk a little more about our schedule for the party later.
4. Setting up the Party:
- We decided to go with an assembly line set up, as it seemed the easiest and most efficient. We had it loop through a few rooms in our house (haha) since we needed so much space.
Our first station had all of the empty shoeboxes stacked in piles, and a table for wrapping them. Some people love to wrap their boxes, some don't. Either way is fine. We didn't wrap many of our boxes, because we had a big goal, with not that much time. We still had the option anyways (and yes, a few boxes did get wrapped).
Next, we had two long tables with all of the items stacked and sorted on the tables. We sorted them out into these sections:
*Necessities (socks, clothes, soap, combs/hairbrushes, washcloths, clothes, etc.);
* Toys : Girl (hair ponies, headbands, clips, toy jewelry, plastic princess tiaras, etc.), Boys: (Cars, balls, etc.) and toys that would be good for either gender (jump-ropes, stuffed animals, kazoos, harmonicas, yo-yos, Slinky's, stickers, etc.);*School Supplies (pens, pencils with sharpeners, markers, crayons, coloring books, notepads, erasers, etc.); and
*Candy (gum, mints, hard candies, lollipops... no chewy or sticky candy, nothing that can melt or spoil, no chocolates. Also, all candies must be double bagged.)
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| Table #1 |
We also had bags and boxes of items under the tables, since they weren't quite large enough to hold everything. Another idea is to get large bins, boxes or tubs to put your items in, rather than just setting it out on the tables, like we did.
Finally, we had a table with letter writing supplies, boy/girl labels, and rubber bands, for finishing off our boxes. When the boxes were complete, we decided to stack them against the wall in the hallway, so they would be out of the way. We designated a small section of the hallway for each person, so they could each see their stack of shoeboxes they had packed grow.
5. Party Time!
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| Part of Table #2 |
Our party was a lot of fun, and we packed over 100 shoeboxes, although not quite 160. (: Start off by showing your guests where to put the items they brought. Next, we watched two short videos from the Resource DVD I received from Samaritan's Purse. After that, I explained how the assembly line process would work, and we opened up in prayer.
A couple of people at our party were new to making boxes, so I made sure to go over basic filling instructions, like making sure to wrap the box and lid separately, remembering to tape a label to the box when finished, how to decide what should go in your box, etc.
We packed until all of our supplies were gone, and then we gathered around the boxes for group pictures and prayer. One of the most important things you can do is pray over your completed boxes. Pray for the children receiving the boxes, their families, and their communities. (:
As everyone was leaving, I handed out the prayer bookmarks included in the Party Pack, and I also made certificates for everyone that came. You can find certificates to use on Operation Christmas Child's website.
A few more ideas for your party:
- We played Christmas music in the background. It was only mid-October, but it didn't matter. We were packing Christmas gifts, after all.
- Have snacks set out for everyone to munch on while packing. Just be careful to have nothing too messy, you wouldn't want to spill something on a shoebox gift. We had M n' M's and Chex Mix.
- Take lots of pictures! We had such a good time, and now I'm glad that we took pictures of it. Being able to look back on what we did, how we set things up, and so on, gives me new ideas for next time.
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| Just some of our finished shoeboxes! You can see the signs on the wall with each persons name, and their stack of boxes. |
very detailed helpful information. thank you!!
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