Shoeboxes!

On Monday we had the opportunity to go to one of the Operation Christmas Child processing centers for an open house to see what happens to our shoeboxes once we fill them with goodies and turn them in. I didn't get a picture of the map showing all of the countries the boxes are going to this year. But some of the countries include Cameroon, Georgia (near Russia, not the state), Iraq, and St. Kitts. The project started in 1993 and they've sent out 60+ million boxes. Each year it takes over 120,000 workers to process the boxes.

The volunteers told the children how the boxes travel sometimes by truck, dog sled, elephant and even camel! Fletcher got to be the plane.

The center was closed for this special Family Day but normally there are hundreds of volunteers along these lines sorting, inspecting, taping, and boxing up the shoeboxes to be sent to their final destinations.

Some of the boxes have very specific rules depending on what country they are going to.

This volunteer was explaining to Fletcher and his friend Noah how the boxes get sorted into bigger girl boxes and boy boxes.

It is hard to see in the photo, but there is a "Shoe Box Hospital" for boxes that come in that are damaged or cracked. Some items have to be taken out of the boxes (war toys, liquid, chocolate, etc) and they are replaced with "filler items" that are safe for the children to have.

The boxes move along these conveyor belts. The parking lot had several semi trailers that are also filled with boxes. I forgot to take a picture of that.

At the end of the tour, Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales were there to greet the kids. (Luke was here, but he isn't in any of the photos because he was strapped in his stroller eating his snack most of the time. He wanted *nothing* to do with the freakishly GIANT garden vegetables).

I think Fletcher enjoyed it and learned alot. I really enjoyed seeing how it all works. It is amazing that the place we went is only one of 6 or 7 processing centers around the country. I'd love to volunteer here one day. They told us that groups come from all over the country to volunteer (senior adults, women's groups, youth groups, etc).

When we made our boxes, we signed up with EZ Give which is supposed to allow us to track our package and see where it ends up. We did three boxes this year so I wonder if all three will go to the same place. We'll see.