Record Number of Shoeboxes Collected

A record number of gift- filled Operation Christmas Child (OCC) Shoeboxes were collected from throughout the Tri-Cities/Eastern Oregon region on Monday and loaded into trucks for the next step of a long journey to needy children in 130 countries worldwide.

A total of 14,803 Christ- mas Child Shoeboxes were counted by late Monday evening, surpassing the 2012 collection by 2,161 shoeboxes when a total of 12,642 were donated. Monday's tal- ly also exceeds the region's 2013 goal of 13,777 shoeboxes, said Tricia MacFarlan, OCC regional coordinator.

"We prayerfully set a big goal of 13,777 shoeboxes for our area tea," MacFarlan said. "We started (Monday) the last day at the Collection Center with just about 7,500 shoeboxes packed in the truck to be taken to LA Dis- tribution Center. We were a little worried that we would have a lot of empty space on our second trailer. By 7 p.m. we had over 14,800 shoe- boxes packed in cartons and loaded into the trucks."

The totals collected include Kennewick/Central Pasco - 1208; Pasco - 346; LaGrande - 954; Dayton - 295; Hermiston - 1,220; Walla Walla - 2,056, Pend- leton - 940; and Richland (Bethel Church) - 7,784.

The shoeboxes were collected Nov. 18 - 25 at sites from Tri-Cities to LaGrande, Ore. then hauled to Bethel Church in Richland for a final tally on Monday. They are now being trucked to a distribution center in Los Angeles. They will be added to millions of shoeboxes col- lected across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several European countries in a massive effort by Sa- maritan's Purse, a non-profit Christian relief agency that began 20 years ago.

Shoeboxes from the west coast will be sent to the Philippines, Indone- sia, Madagscar, Mongolia, Nepal, Panama, and the Ukraine. Boxes were filled with school supplies, toys, personal hygiene items, and small clothing items by individuals, youth and adult service groups, businesses, families, and churches.