Don’t come late to our Operation Christmas Child packing party on September 28. A year ago, we packed 102 gloriously wrapped shoe boxes in less than an hour between worship services. The festivities will be held in the Simpson Room. The process begins as soon as the 9:00 am Contemporary worship service ends. We hope to be finished before the 11:00 am Traditional service begins. Everyone begins with an empty box, then circles the room gathering school supplies, toothbrushes, toys, stuffed animals, and other gifts. Nobody stops until their boxes are stuffed! This is our 15th year filling OCC boxes as a church family, and we have provided more than 1,500 boxes to children in Ukraine, and multiple countries in Africa, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, as well as nations that cannot be identified for security reasons.
If you want to contribute to our 2025 campaign, we still need toothbrushes! We would also welcome glue sticks, pens, markers, colored pencils, crayons, and school notebooks that fit into a shoe box. Pencil boxes, or zippered pencil bags, would be helpful, too. We have reached our targets for pencils, rulers, scissors, and erasers of all sizes. Thank you! Sunglasses, T-shirts, dolls, balls, small toys, simple jewelry, hair accessories, combs, brushes, bandanas, and adhesive bandages are also welcome. Imagination is also encouraged, but remember we cannot accept liquids, aerosol cans, candy, or food, toothpaste, anything that reflects the military or violence, glass or breakable items, or used/damaged items. Our collection boxes are located in the hallway to the library, and in the Narthex. For more information, see Grace Rogansky or Bill Utterback.