In follow up to our story on community giving by Acton for Acton, we thought it was important to highlight this story of fundraising in Acton for children around the world! The following story was provided by Shannon Furzer, event organizer and Community Life Co-ordnator at Bethel Church.
Operation Christmas Child is a ministry through Samaritan’s Purse Canada. Canadians can bless struggling children in the developing world by filling shoeboxes with toys, hygiene items, school supplies and other items. Samaritan’s Purse collects the shoeboxes and distributes the shoeboxes along with a Gospel opportunity through The Greatest Journey (they introduce the child to Jesus). The mission of Operation Christmas Child is to "provide God’s love in a tangible way to children in need around the world and together with the local church worldwide, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ".
Last year, Bethel Church donated 168 shoeboxes through our congregation and our GEMS Girls Club Mother/Daughter night where we packed shoeboxes. Even with COVID, Operation Christmas Child was still going to run a traditional season of packing shoeboxes. Our GEMS Girls Club was not meeting in person so our plan to pack shoeboxes in November at the church was not going to happen. Which was so unfortunate as we had acquired a VERY LARGE donation in January of party favours from Unique Party Favours in Brampton. It included thousands of discontinued party favours (ie. party horns, bouncy balls, tiaras, temporary tattoos, stickers, activity books, small notebooks etc). We were VERY excited to be able to include these in the shoeboxes we were planning on packing but with our COVID restrictions, we were unable to do that. So I contacted Samaritan’s Purse to see if they would like them. They were so happy to receive them and said it was “an answer to prayer”. So together with Atlas Van Lines, they were shipped to Calgary so that they could be included in the packing of shoeboxes at their headquarters!
When I found at the end of August that even with COVID that Samaritan’s Purse was still going forward with their Operation Christmas Child campaign, I decided that I would put a challenge out to our community of Acton. How many shoeboxes could we fill?
I started with 40 shoeboxes at the church and ordered another 60 thinking that, with COVID, we might not get too many people packing them. Then I put out the “Community Challenge” on Facebook and I contacted all the churches in Acton to see if they wanted to participate. To keep with COVID safety protocol, if someone wanted to participate, I would drop off shoebox(es) at their door and then then they could let me know when it was ready and I would come back to pick it up. They just needed to leave it on their doorstep.
I NEVER thought it would explode the way it did. I encouraged neighbourhoods, local businesses and churches to participate. I ordered 300 boxes every week from Calgary! It spread in Acton like wildfire! I had people donating money so that I could buy supplies to pack shoeboxes for them. People were donating supplies, people were filling shoeboxes. Robert Little Public School and McKenzie Smith Bennett Public School staff participated. Acton High School Me to We club filled 50! So many local businesses donated items and filled shoeboxes with their employees. Mayor Rick Bonnette and Councillor Mike Albano even filled shoeboxes. The challenge went viral in Georgetown too and I was delivering all over the place there as well. An entire neighbourhood worked together and filled 32 shoeboxes!! I even worked with Linda Hush the owner of Dollar Stretcher Daze to help make it easy and safe for people to fill a shoebox. I dropped off empty boxes to her at the store and people could come in and fill one at her store and leave it with her for me to pick up. It was so wonderful to work with her and support a local business ❤️. I also had one lovely lady even advertise the challenge in her Guelph Facebook groups and she was able to donate over 20 shoeboxes from Guelph!
The people I met, the stories I have heard and shared have been so heartwarming. New family traditions of packing shoeboxes, a wonderful woman and her Mom and Mother in Law and their extended family all packing shoeboxes for the children. It made me cry.
In the end, we packed 42 cases with 24 shoeboxes in each for a grand total of 1008 shoeboxes. So absolutely AMAZING!
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