Operation Christmas Child Fact Sheet

WHAT?
More than 8 million suffering children in more than 100 countries on six continents will receive personal, gift-filled shoe boxes through this kids-helping-kids project. For many of these children, the shoe box gift will be the first gift they have ever received. 


WHEN?
Now through Christmas 2007…

• Kids, families, churches, scout troops, schools, civic clubs, and businesses are filling their shoe boxes now. This fall, shoe box gifts can be dropped off at one of more than 2,000 drop-off sites located in all 50 states. National Collection Week is Nov. 12-19.
  To find the nearest location, call (800) 353-5949 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org. (After Nov. 19, shoe box gifts should be mailed to Samaritan’s Purse: 801 Bamboo Road, Boone, N.C. 28607.)

WHO?
Millions Worldwide
Caring individuals, families, schools, churches, scout troops, civic clubs and other organizations in thousands of cities in all 50 states and 10 additional countries will fill more than 8 million shoe boxes with personal gifts, school supplies, candy, necessity items, family photos and notes of encouragement.

More than 250,000 volunteers worldwide, including some 126,000 volunteers in the United States will join forces to prepare the boxes for transport to distant lands.

WHERE?
It’s a global thing…
The shoe box gifts will be filled and donated by millions of individuals in 11 countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Finland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and New Zealand

Samaritan’s Purse national partners will hand-deliver the shoe box gifts to 8 million children in more than 100 countries.


HOW?
By land, by air, by sea, by camel…
The shoe box gifts are inspected and prepared for overseas shipment in 6 major centers across the United States: Boone, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Atlanta; Denver; Orange County, Calif. Then, the shoe box gifts are loaded onto some of the world’s largest cargo planes, trucks, and sea containers bound for the far reaches of the earth.

Once the gifts are transported to countries around the world, Samaritan's Purse teams and partners transport them by truck, bus, train, helicopter, boat, foot, dog sled, mule, and even camel to hand-deliver the gifts to hurting children.


HISTORY?
Growing Fast!
Operation Christmas Child began in the United States in 1993 with 28,000 shoe box gifts. Since then, the kids-helping-kids project has collected more than 54 million shoe box gifts and hand-delivered them to needy children in some 120 countries, including:

• Children in war torn Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries (2006)

• Young survivors of the horrific tsunami in Southeast Asia (2005)

• School children attacked by terrorists in Beslan, Russia (2004)

• Ugandan children devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic (2002)

• War orphans in Kosovo (1999), Bosnia and Croatia (1995-1996), and Rwanda (1994)

• Children in Honduras and Nicaragua left homeless by Hurricane Mitch (1998)

Did You Know?

• Every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan has packed an Operation Christmas Child shoe box gift.

• Operation Christmas Child is a project of international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, ranked three times by SmartMoney magazine as America’s most efficiently run charity (2000, 2001, 2002). Headed by Franklin Graham, Samaritan’s Purse is currently working in some 100 countries providing relief and aid to victims of war, natural disaster, famine, disease, and poverty.

-30-