The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child area coordinator Patricia Parsons, left, loads some shoe boxes on a trailer Monday at Elkins Big Lots. Helping Parsons is Carl Murphy, who has been a volunteer with the organization for 25 years.

The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley
Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child area coordinator Patricia Parsons, left, loads some shoe boxes on a trailer Monday at Elkins Big Lots. Helping Parsons is Carl Murphy, who has been a volunteer with the organization for 25 years.

ELKINS — The annual Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child program is currently underway in the local area as shoe box donations are being accepted at several locations throughout Randolph County.

Collections began on Monday and Nov. 22 is the final day to drop off shoe boxes, which will be distributed to needy children in more than 100 countries around the world.

The boxes can be filled with a variety of items, including hygiene products, toys, games, clothes, shoes and a stuffed animal that the children can hold and hug. The organization also asks that one “Wow” item be placed in the box, along with $9 for shipping. The “Wow” item can be anything from a soccer ball with a pump to an action figure.

The boxes can be any size and they can be dropped off in Randolph County at Big Lots, Bowden Family Worship Center, Community Church of Mabie, and Tygarts Valley Ministries in Beverly.

“All the boxes go to a processing center in Charlotte and from there they will be shipped to whatever country is on the list,” area Samaritan’s Purse coordinator Patricia Parsons told The Inter-Mountain. “This coming year they are working on sending a lot of the boxes to the Pacific Islands. They want to reach all of them and there are over 1,000 in the Pacific.”

Miller takes care of five counties — Tucker, Barbour, Upshur, Randolph and Pocahontas — as coordinator. She said those five counties alone distributed 8,000 boxes last year.

“We normally try to do close to 12,000 and we have gotten as many as 14,000 before,” Parsons said. “I’m really hoping that we reach our goal of 12,000 this year.”

This will be the 27th year that Samaritan’s Purse International has presented Operation Christmas Child. A shoe box donation can also be made online, where the organization will personalize a gift from the donor along with a letter and photo. To donate online or for more information go to samaritanspurse.org.

“For the area, we were in the 80s last year with online orders,” Parsons said. “It was really great for people to be able to do that with all the COVID stuff that was going on. And it’s easy to do once you get on there. People can just go online, click a few buttons, pick out what you want, and then they will send it away for you.”

Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. When the gifts are delivered, a representative from Samaritan’s Purse goes into the villages and communities and teaches the people there about Jesus.

“There are actually 1,000 churches planted each year because of the shoe boxes,” Parsons said. “Samaritan’s Purse sends people into these locations to train the people who live there about religion. And then they pass it down to the children and the other adults who live there.”

Those making donations are asked to choose whether the recipient will be a boy or girl in the age groups 2 to 4, 5 to 9, and 10 to 14.