Area Residents Gearing Up To Help Children In Need

Area individuals, families, churches and groups are working to help needy kids around the world by filling shoeboxes with toys, school supplies, hygiene items and notes of encouragement.

Operation Christmas Child is ramping up as local residents prepare to collect 2,200 gift-filled shoeboxes during National Collection Week, November 18th thru the 25th. At local collection sites in the Oneonta area, anyone can drop off a gift-filled shoebox to be sent to a child overseas.

The Oneonta collection site is at the Main Street Baptist Church, 333 Main Street. Other collection sites are at the First Baptist Church in Sidney and the Community Bible Chapel in Cooperstown. For more information regarding these collection locations, call 1-800-567-8580.

Though the shoebox gifts will often travel thousands of miles, Operation Christmas Child offers a way for participants to follow their box by using the donation form found at samaritanspurse.org. Donors will receive an email telling them the country their shoeboxes were delivered to.

Operation Christmas Child has collected and delivered more than 100 million shoebox gifts to children in more than 100 countries since 1993.