Lake County students pack gifts for Operation Christmas Child

Operation Christmas Child is a program through Samaritan's Purse International Relief that gifts shoe box-sized presents to children in faraway lands. The children who receive the gifts from OCC have never received a Christmas present before. Each year about 9 million gifts are delivered to children in more than 140 countries.

Every year for the past five years, Wendy Mills, a business education teacher at Wauconda High School, has organized a trip to volunteer at an Operation Christmas Child processing center.

This year, 31 Future Business Leaders of America students from Wauconda, Warren Township, and Mundelein high schools traveled to Minneapolis, where one of the nine national OCC processing centers is located. Their first shift was Friday, Dec. 5, and their second shift was Saturday, Dec. 6.

The high school students worked on an assembly line in which they inspected, packed, taped, and prepared boxes to be shipped. Over eight hours of service, they made about 3,000 boxes. The gifts they prepared were earmarked to be shipped to India and Ecuador.

"It really made me realize just how many children, and even families, we are affecting through the holiday spirit," Ruben Torres from Warren Township said. "I can only wish that we were able to bring some cheer to the lives of children in need."

In addition to India and Ecuador, Operation Christmas Child delivers gifts to children all over the world, including 60,000 gifts recently sent to children in Northern Iraq and gifts to children of families displaced by violence in the Middle East.

Samaritan's Purse offers other opportunities to help people around the world, such as buying goats for families in need around the world, or supporting their international relief effort to provide food, water, and eduction to South Sudan.

For information about Samaritan's Purse and Operation Christmas Child or to donate, visit www.samaritanspurse.org.