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A volunteer shows the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes that will be filled with gifts to give to children around the world. A workshop to teach others how to fill a shoebox for the project will be held Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023, at First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove.

Courtesy Diane Miller

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Volunteers for Operation Christmas Child during a previous year are pictured. A workshop to teach others how to fill a shoebox for the project will be held Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023, at First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove.

Courtesy Diane Miller

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Volunteers for Operation Christmas Child help collect shoebox gifts and donated items at one of the drop-off locations during national collection week. This year's national collection week will be Nov. 13-20, 2023. A workshop to teach others how to fill a shoebox for the project will be held Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023, at First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove.

Courtesy Diane Miller

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Thousands of people across the country gathered last weekend to participate in workshops to learn about giving aid through Operation Christmas Child. This Saturday, a second training workshop will be held at First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove, 344 E. Center St.

Operation Christmas Child, or OCC, was created in 1993 to “Demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to children in need around the world,” said Candace Reno, volunteer logistics coordinator for OCC. The OCC is one of many ministry projects under Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian international relief organization founded by Franklin Graham.

The operation collects millions of shoeboxes full of toys, clothes, hygiene products and school supplies from people nationwide to deliver to children in over 170 countries and territories. The workshop in Pleasant Grove this Saturday will teach people how to become project leaders to lead a group in creating shoebox gifts, equip returning and new leaders with the tools needed to organize a group for the project, and to teach individuals how to fill a shoebox.

The workshop is from 10 a.m. to noon and will include three classes, of which participants can choose one to attend. Reno said participants should arrive at 10 a.m. to look around at the tables with fliers and information, then find their classroom to attend the workshop they have chosen.

All who attend the workshop will also receive five OCC shoeboxes for free to fill and donate. No registration is necessary to attend the workshop.

The workshop is open to everyone, and anyone can organize a group to put together boxes regardless of their age, their experience with OCC or their religious affiliation or lack of. A project leader is anyone who helps gather people together to fill shoeboxes. This could be someone organizing an entire church group, getting together a group of friends, or filling boxes as a family to donate.

Everyone has until national collection week which will be Nov. 13-20 this year to create their boxes. By mid-October, information about drop off locations will be released on OCC’s website.

After the boxes are collected, they will be delivered over the course of the next year. OCC has currently delivered 209 million boxes for underprivileged children. This year, the organization hopes to receive 11 million donated boxes overall and has a goal of receiving more than 19,000 shoebox gifts from people in the Salt Lake City area.

There are specific items that are encouraged and others that are restricted, such as food, liquids and toy war items. Each box should include a “wow” gift that will make the child very excited.

There are several different ways to donate other than physically filling and donating a shoebox gift. There is an option to donate items, which should be dropped off at the same locations as the shoebox gifts during the national collection. These extra items are used to help fill the boxes that may have less than others or need more of a certain type of item.

Filling a shoebox online is also an option that was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals can pay $25 to fill the box online and choose which items to include. These online filled shoebox gifts are helpful to deliver to countries where Christianity is restricted, Reno explained, as they can ensure nothing religious or otherwise restricted is included.

Although it is not required, OCC suggests including a $10 donation with each shoebox to assist in the shipping costs and to help compensate those helping to deliver the boxes in other countries and running the 12-week discipleship program.

Each child who receives a box also receives an invitation to participate in the 12-week discipleship program to teach them about Jesus Christ through stories from the Bible. The discipleship program is free for the children and completely optional.

Reno said the biggest part of the project is giving gifts and needed supplies to children in need that will bring them joy. She added, “A lot of them have never heard of Jesus, so our way of being able to share Jesus with people in other countries is to get the shoeboxes to them, and then once they’re there we can invite them to learn more about Jesus” through the discipleship program.