The Operation Christmas Child warehouse at St James’ Church in Meltham Mills will send a record number of Christmas shoebox gifts to children in Liberia and Romania this year after spending eleven Christmases taking part in the project.
The warehouse closed its doors last Friday after collecting gifts throughout November and will send 15,700 gifts to children in need – a record number for St James’!
After the gifts have been fully processed, the shoebox donations will be on their way to children in Africa and Europe just in time for Christmas.
Judith Powell, co-ordinator of the project in Meltham Mills, says, “We think there is so much love in those boxes that when they get into the hands of children in other countries they're bound to feel that love.”
Operation Christmas Child is a project run by Samaritan’s Purse all over the UK, where people fill a shoebox with small gifts and give the box to an Operation Christmas Child drop-off centre, like the warehouse in St James’ Church.
The shoebox gift will then be sent to children across the globe in countries known for their widespread conflict and poverty.
The warehouse in St James’ Church has been operating each year since 2004 and in that time has sent over 100,000 shoeboxes to schools in Romania and other poverty stricken countries.
Around 180 volunteers, including corporate volunteers and volunteers from Kirklees College, work at the warehouse in St James', Meltham Mills - some volunteers will go out collecting shoeboxes while others work in the church helping to process the gifts.
The church has help from countless people in the community, including The Crossroads, Meltham Churches Together charity shop, which give Operation Christmas Child a generous grant to help finance the work; Mandy Taylor of Gibson Taylor Tranzol who allows them space to store all the cartons which contain the shoeboxes until the arrival of the container vehicle at the end of the month; Meltham Post Office who help with all the cash transactions throughout the month (money collected from the boxes which goes towards the cost of transporting the shoeboxes); the Christian African Relief Trust and the Mormon Church in Meltham.
St James' Church, Meltham Mills is still used, each Friday, from Easter to the end of October, when a group of volunteers meet together to prepare for Operation Christmas Child.
During November, Sunday worship takes place as normal although sometimes the congregation will be surrounded by shoeboxes waiting to be processed and equipment used by the shoebox team, but there is a good relationship between the volunteers and the church.
The volunteers help prepare the church for Sunday service and the church help prepare for the work of Operation Christmas Child.
Samaritan’s Purse has been running Operation Christmas Child in the UK since 1990 and has sent gifts to over 124 million children in over 150 countries over the past 25 years.
To find out more about Operation Christmas Child, please visit the Samaritan’s Purse website here: https://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/
To see the clip featuring St James’ Operation Christmas Child warehouse on ITV’s Calendar news, see here: http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2015-11-23/from-yorkshire-to-syria-volunteers-put-together-christmas-shoeboxes/