November is collection month for Samaritan’s Purse Project Operation Christmas Child.
Marlinton Presbyterian Church is a collection site for Operation Christmas Child. During National Collection week, November 18 – 25, the church will be open for a couple hours each day as a drop-off point for shoeboxes. Hours are as follows:
Monday through Friday, November 18–22, 4 to 6 p.m.
Saturday, November 23 10 a.m. to noon
Sunday, November 24 noon to 2 p.m.
Monday, November 25 9 to 11 a.m.
Empty shoeboxes for packing are also available at the church.
Marlinton Presbyterian Church is located on Main Street at the corner of Second Avenue.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief organization. Their mission is to provide local partners around the world with shoeboxes filled with small toys, hygiene items, and school supplies as a means of reaching out to children in their own communities with the Good News of Jesus Christ. They ship these simple gifts outside the United States to children affected by war, poverty, natural disaster, famine and disease.
For many of the children, the shoebox is the first gift they ever receive.
The program was started in the United Kingdom in 1990 by Dave and Jill Cooke. Three years after its beginning, the Wales-based shoebox gift project merged in a partnership with Samaritan’s Purse, allowing them to share 20 years of expertise in relief and aid work with the project, and expand the reach of the shoebox gifts to more than 28,000 children that year. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has delivered gift-filled shoeboxes to more than 220 million children in more than 170 countries and territories.
For more information about Operation Christmas Child or to view gift suggestions, visit samaritanspurse. org/occ
