Local families are preparing for the school year with back-to-school sales and adding more items to their lists for children in need around the world. Shoebox packers are using this time to purchase gifts and essential items to fill Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts. Children in over 100 countries will be blessed by these gift-filled shoeboxes and the hope of Jesus.

Many children around the world are not able to afford school supplies, and coloring pencils, crayons and markers are a luxury many cannot access. For Olesea Makarets, a shoebox recipient from Moldova, markers in her home were shared among her siblings. The colorful markers were used until the very last drop, and then she and her siblings would dip the markers in water to try to make them last longer.

When Makarets received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox, she remembers what stood out to her most.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off a pack of colorful markers,” she said. “My siblings and I shared the markers we had but now I had received a pack of my very own.”

The simple gift deeply impacted Makarets’ life.

“Receiving a shoebox gift made me realize that Jesus, the powerful man in the Bible, is actually real,” she said.

The power of packing school supplies in shoebox gifts, can transform a child’s life and point them toward a greater hope.

For more information, call 704-583-1463, or go to samaritanspurse.org/occ.

National Collection Week is Nov. 18 – 25. Participants can donate $10 per shoebox gift online through “Follow Your Box” and receive a tracking label to discover its destination. Those who prefer the convenience of online shopping can browse samaritanspurse.org/buildonline to select gifts matched to a child’s specific age and gender, then finish packing the virtual shoebox by adding a photo and personal note of encouragement.

Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan‘s Purse, seeks to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to children in need around the world and, together with the local church worldwide, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has collected and delivered more than 220 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in more than 170 countries and territories.