Operation Christmas Child is on again!

Some of you may remember my post about the softies (plushies) I made for Operation Christmas Child ast year.  Well, today I wanted to tell my readers that OCC is up and running again in preparation for Christmas 2010.  For those of you wondering what OCC is, it is a program run each Christmas by Samaritan's Purse to provide some much-needed gifts and a smile to children living in underprivileged situations.  OCC participants are asked to fill a shoe box with brand new gifts (according to the provided guidelines) suitable for a boy or a girl within set age ranges.  These boxes are collected and then distributed to various villages in needy areas (usually those in which Samaritan's Purse have already been working to provide other basic needs such as water filters or educational improvements).

It may seem a very simple and short-term project to undertake, but I think it is a wonderful first step towards helping out those in need in other ways (such as through child sponsorship or supporting a larger project run by groups such as World Vision and TEAR).  And I have also found this to be a great project for teaching my children to count their blessings and to show generosity to others since they help me to choose gifts and pack the OCC boxes every year.

For those of my readers who are interested in participating, you can follow my link above to find more details.  Those of you who live outside of the Australia/NZ area will need to look up the OCC site for your region (I know there are US and UK OCC sites).  If you are a talented crafter, you might like to make some of the items which will be going into your box!  My only note is to be aware of which areas your OCC box may be sent.  Boxes from Australia and NZ are usually sent to countries in Asia, so I would recommend against packing items such as woollen gloves, ha ha.  This year the Australia/NZ OCC site has an exciting option for you to track the progress of your box.

If you would like to participate and cannot find the information you are looking for, please leave me a comment and I will see if I have the links you need.  And if you are participating this year, feel free to tell me about it - I get excited hearing about what others are doing!