Boxes of Hope: The Story of Operation Christmas Child in Colorado

By Julie Simpson –

It’s almost Christmas. A 6-year-old girl sits on a pile of rubble wearing her only dress, no shoes and a dirt-stained frown. Her tired face reflects the toll of the death and hunger she has seen too much of in her short years. Then someone hands her a shoebox wrapped in brightly colored paper, and her face begins to light up with hopeful curiosity. As she carefully removes each small treasure from her box, a giggle and a smile crack open her world-weary exterior to reveal the innocent child beneath.

This is one of the many goals of the international Operation Christmas Child project: to bring smiles of joy to the faces of children all over the world suffering through war, famine, disease, natural disasters and abandonment.

The idea is simple, but compelling. Volunteers, primarily members of involved churches, pack ordinary shoeboxes full of clothes, toys, school and art supplies, candy and hygiene items for a specific gender and age group. Many volunteers also include a letter, connecting the box recipients to the box packers halfway across the world and letting them know that someone cares for them. Boxes are then delivered to children in need wherever the need is greatest, and the smiles abound.

Begun as a project by Samaritan’s Purse, a nonprofit relief organization providing food, water and education wherever needed around the world, Operation Christmas Child took on a life of its own after volunteer numbers surged following the first delivery of boxes to war-torn Bosnia in 1993. In the years since, shoebox Christmas gifts have been sent to countries on every continent suffering the effects of poverty, war or natural disasters. Incredibly, now 21 years since its inception, OCC has delivered more than 100 million shoeboxes in over 130 countries.

But why shoeboxes full of small gifts? To people unfamiliar with Operation Christmas Child, the idea can seem a little odd. Wouldn’t all that time, money and energy be better invested in something more significant like food and clean water? Though shoeboxes often contain helpful physical necessities, their deepest impact occurs at the emotional and spiritual level, restoring and encouraging the hearts of children.

“Operation Christmas Child reaches out to those in the state of famine, the state of war and the state of calamities for one reason: the state of the soul,” writes Franklin Graham, the founder of Samaritan’s Purse, in his book about OCC: Operation Christmas Child: A Story of Simple Gifts. Children in extremely poor, war-torn and famine-stricken countries experience little in life that feeds their souls. Rather, they are forced to grow up faster than their years in order to cope with the horror of their circumstances, leaving them hopeless and jaded.

For these children, even the barest hints of beauty and kindness shine like a ray of light in the darkness. Such was true for Elena, who was astounded just by the bright wrapping paper on her box. “The orphanage was dismal,” she remembers, “our uniforms were gray and dingy. The sun didn’t shine much in Russia and my world was dark and uninteresting. But to see the bright colors made my heart feel happy.” Even something as simple as the boxes’ shiny wrapping paper has the ability to revive the childlike spirit of downtrodden children.

With all resources being dedicated to survival, many children have never had a chance to own something just for fun. Everything they have is a bare necessity, leaving nothing extra for items that allow them just to be kids. Even items such as pencils are a luxury. As Graham’s book records, a little boy once approached OCC volunteers after opening his box to ask if he needed to return 13 of the 14 pencils he was given. Such an extravagance as 14 pencils was beyond his comprehension.

In addition, children in orphanages or impoverished large families usually never get the chance to have something all their own. Ownership of something, even something seemingly ordinary, gives them the chance to experience at least a small amount of control over their out-of-control circumstances. For Ted, that ordinary something was a washcloth he received in a OCC shoebox: “To think I could own my own personal towel was more than I could have ever hoped for and I cherished and guarded it because it belonged to me.”

Often, boxes “just happen” to contain exactly what a child or family needs to make it through a particular difficulty. In one story out of Kosovo, the only boy in the room without a coat opened up his box to discover a fleece-lined leather jacket, though this was not on the list of suggested items given to those donating boxes. In another instance, a little girl found in her box a dress meant for an infant despite the box’s older age designation. She happily took the dress home to her newborn sister. Stories like these come from box delivery sites every year, miraculous connections between the giving hearts of box packers and the specific needs of those receiving them.

Coloradans have been a significant part of this mission from the beginning. Bill and Verna Pauls, Denver natives, traveled with Graham on one of the first Operation Christmas Child deliveries to war-torn Kosovo and Albania in 1999. Inspired by what they saw, the Pauls dedicated time, money and their own facilities to open Colorado’s first processing center. Thanks to them, Coloradans not only can pack individual boxes, but also participate in the larger process of checking, sorting and sending out shipments of hope.

Charissa Fryberger of Kiowa has taken two vans filled with volunteers to the Denver processing center every year for the last several years of her 13 years of involvement with Operation Christmas Child. They help out with the screening that must be done to ensure boxes do not contain money, war toys, candy that could melt or liquids. “It really impacts the people who go,” she says, “seeing that half an acre of Christmas boxes. It’s been fun over the years to watch the number of boxes grow.”

Like many volunteers, Fryberger first got involved with the program through her children, continuing to volunteer even now that they are grown. She and her husband saw it as an effective way not only to help a child somewhere else in the world, but also to teach their own children a valuable lesson.

“We started doing it because we always donated money, but it was hard for our kids to understand giving that way,” she explains. “But packing a box and talking about the child who would be getting their box made that person real to them. Now as adults, whatever money they make they give away a percentage, and all of them volunteer on a regular basis.”

Ashley Valdez, the communications manager with San Isabel Electric Association in Pueblo, first got involved with Operation Christmas Child when her children were young, a tradition that continued as her family has grew. “My husband and I are blessed with so much, and we are happy to bring joy, hope and a few practical items to those in need,” she explains. “Our grandchildren and daughter visit us every other year, and they like to do their own shoeboxes, too. It’s a wonderful tradition that we look forward to each Christmas season.”

Volunteering with Operation Christmas Child is a family affair for Robin Shearer of Pueblo. “Since 2012, my 18-year-old daughter, Christina, 16-year-old son, Aaron, and I have been year-round volunteers on the Southern Colorado Church Relations Team, supporting churches and community groups as they partner with OCC,” she says. “My husband, Gordon, is a big supporter of OCC and my 14-year-old son, Alex, and 13-year-old daughter, Alaina, are also a huge part of our team. Serving together unites our family and gives us great joy.”

Dee Anna Vandiver helps the kids at her church in Meeker to connect to their box recipients by including a letter that has a map where they can color in their state to explain where the box is coming from. “The children all get really excited about the project,” she says. “All my grandchildren who are spread all over always get involved, too. It’s just really exciting for all of us.” Last year, her congregation at Meeker Methodist Church sent out 100 boxes despite its small numbers.

Bill and Verna brought OCC to the state; the contribution of Colorado volunteers to the regional and nationwide collection goals is significant. According to Rachel Stewart with the OCC Aurora office, last year several hundred volunteers collected and processed more than 137,000 boxes, contributing over a third of the total to the regional (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming) collection of 308,007 shoeboxes. This year, the bar is set even higher at a hoped-for collection goal of 345,000. With Colorado’s participation only growing, its role in the continuation and growth of the project as a whole is vital.

Operation Christmas Child in Colorado is always looking for new volunteers, and there are multiple ways to get involved for both individuals and families. The Denver processing facility and local collection sites, locations which can be found at samaritanspurse.org/occ, open every year during National Collection Week (November 17-24 this year). Once locations are open, volunteers can sign up at occvolunteersignup.com to spend a few hours, a day, or even a few days working to sort and organize donated boxes either by themselves or with a group.

During National Collection Week, Operation Christmas Child also hosts local kickoff events featuring what it calls “full-circle speakers.” These speakers are the children, now grown, who once received an OCC shoebox and had their lives significantly impacted as a result. Local churches usually host several events, a list of which can be found on the samaritanspurse.org/occ website. Anyone is welcome to attend and hear the speakers’ amazing and inspiring stories.

Of course, anyone may also pack his or her own shoeboxes to donate. Instructions and tips can be found at samaritanspurse.org/occ, including what to pack and what not to include in the boxes, how to wrap them and where to send them. While Colorado collection centers are open only in late fall until the beginning of December, the Samaritan’s Purse Boone, North Carolina, location accepts shoebox donations year-round. The Operation Christmas Child website also accepts donations if the holidays leave you too busy to pack your own box.

This year, as you stress over what new original gift to get that person who has everything, take a moment to think about those children in a different part of the world who have nothing and might be alone, hungry, cold, tired and worn down by life. Consider the impact of a simple box full of small gifts on the soul of one of those children, and turn those shoeboxes you receive during this holiday season into packages of hope, ready to bring a smile to a child’s face through Operation Christmas Child next year.

Julie Simpson is a Colorado native and former Colorado Country Life intern who always enjoyed participating in Operation Christmas Child as a kid and looks forward to training her own future children in the art of shoebox packing.

Photos courtesy of Operation Christmas Child.

To see the smiles these boxes bring to children around the world, click here.