Since then, Boonville’s Operation Christmas Child has become an overwhelming success, thanks to the generosity of Boonville United Methodists and North Country residents.
Children and adults alike have participated in the project by filling a simple shoe box with small gifts, including toys, school supplies, hygiene items, candy, and perhaps a letter with a photo. The gifts are eventually hand delivered to children who are victims of war, persecution, poverty, disease, and natural disaster. For many children, these are the only presents they have ever received.
Along with the shoe box, the children and their families also learn the true meaning of Christmas.
“It’s truly amazing how one shoe box gift can make a difference in a child’s life,” said Linda back in 2005.
“This is such a wonderful project, and so easy,” said Connie Gallo, who took over as site coordinator after Linda passed away in May 2007 after a courageous battle against lymphoma.
“Every child that receives a box hears the miracles of Jesus in their own native tongue. They are given the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, the greatest gift of all! Many times a whole family will give their hearts to Christ because of a simple shoe box,” said Connie.
While she does not set a goal for the number of boxes she hopes to collect each year, Connie always asks that each person who picks up an empty box to fill will also take one to give to a person who has never filled one.
“We increase our collection that way,” she said.
Millions of people – many of them from Boonville United Methodist Church and the central New York area – have shared the Christmas message with suffering children all over the world, simply by packing a shoe box with small gifts as part of Operation Christmas Child.
What is Operation Christmas Child? It’s the project of Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization headed by Franklin Graham that collects gift-filled shoe boxes and delivers them in the name of Jesus Christ to children living in desperate situations in distant lands.
In 2010 generous Boonville area residents brought 1,384 boxes to the Boonville United Methodist Church, an official Operation Christmas Child collection center. Because the church is also an official Relay Center, a drop-off point for boxes collected in Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis, Herkimer, and Oneida Counties, a total of 10,216 gift-filled boxes were brought to the church during National Collection Week.
Volunteers packed these boxes into cartons and loaded them onto a tractor-trailer for shipment to a processing center in North Carolina; from there these gifts for boys and girls ages two to 14 were sent by ship and plane to more than 100 countries.
Operation Christmas Child began locally in 1997 by the late Linda McPhilmy, who had read about it in a magazine. That first year, church members and other residents brought 99 boxes to the former Methodist parsonage on Main Street.
How do you say “Merry Christmas” in a language you’ve never heard?