Operation Christmas Child Fact Sheet

What?

Operation Christmas Child is a worldwide children's project of Samaritan's Purse that uses simple gift-filled shoe boxes to let hurting children know that they are loved and not forgotten.

In 2012, Operation Christmas Child expects to reach 9.1 million children.

When?

Now through Christmas 2012

All year, kids, families, churches, scout troops, schools, civic clubs and businesses are filling their shoe boxes. In addition to collecting shoe box gifts year-round at the headquarters in Boone, N.C., Samaritan's Purse will collect gift-filled shoe boxes at more than 3,200 drop-off sites in all 50 states and Puerto Rico during National Collection Week, Nov. 12-19, 2012.

There's still time to send hope to needy children this Christmas. Through an online giving tool called "Build a Box," anyone can virtually pack a shoe box. Just visit the project's website at www.samaritanspurse.org/occ, select a child's age and gender, shop through an online selection of gifts, virtually "pack" them in an empty shoe box, and finish it off with an uploaded photo of yourself and note of encouragement. Then through tracking technology, donors can "follow" their box to the destination country where it will be hand-delivered. Donors can also "gift" their box to family or friends - giving someone the opportunity to give to a child in need.

For more information on how to participate in Operation Christmas Child, call (800) 353-5949 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org/occ.

Who?

Millions Worldwide

Generous kids, families, businesses and organizations in all 50 states and Puerto Rico and 10 additional countries will fill more than 8 million shoe boxes with school supplies, toys, necessity items, family photos and notes of encouragement for needy children.

Some 140,000 volunteers in the United States, bringing the total to more than 500,000 volunteers worldwide, will then help prepare the boxes for transport to distant lands.

Where?

Operation Christmas Child shoe box gifts are collected in: the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Samaritan's Purse and its national partners will hand-deliver each of the 9.1 million shoe box gifts to children in more than 100 countries on six continents.

Operation Christmas Child uses tracking technology that allows donors to "follow" their box to the destination country where it will be hand-delivered to a child in need. To register shoe box gifts and find out to which country they are delivered, use the EZ Give donation form found at www.samaritanspurse.org.

How?

By land, air, sea and elephant

After they are collected at more than 3,200 drop-off locations, shoe box gifts are prepared for overseas shipment in seven major centers across the United States: Boone, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; Minneapolis; Atlanta; Denver; Orange County, Calif.; and Honolulu. 

The shoe box gifts are then loaded onto trucks, sea containers and sometimes even the world's largest cargo planes bound for the far reaches of the earth.

Once the gifts are transported to countries around the world, Samaritan's Purse teams and partners distribute them by bus, train, helicopter, boat, elephant, mule and even dog sled.

History:

Operation Christmas Child began in the United States in 1993 with 28,000 shoe box gifts. Since then, this Samaritan's Purse project has collected and hand-delivered more than 94 million shoe box gifts to needy children in more than 130 countries, including:

• Young earthquake and cholera victims in Haiti (2010)
  
• Kids in China who were vivtims of the 2008 earthquake (2008 & 2009)
• Young children in the war-torn Republic of Georgia (2008)
• Hurting children stricken by poverty in war-ravaged Sudan (2007)
• Children in 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)
• Children in Honduras and Nicaragua left homeless by Hurricane Mitch (1998)
• War orphans in Kosovo (1999), Bosnia and Croatia (1995-1996), and Rwanda (1994)

Did You
Know?

• U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have all packed Operation Christmas Child shoe box gifts for children in need.
• Samaritan's Purse is working in some 100 countries providing aid to victims of war, natural disaster, famine, disease and poverty.