We are in the middle of our last week of DIY Summer Camp. This week our theme is Kindness. I saved it for last since I thought it would be a great way to kick off the new school year. We have been reading a lot of great books and talking about ways to be kind to others. I thought it would be a good time to introduce them to ways to be kind and give back to others in other parts of the world as well. We chose to make Dollar Tree Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.
Operation Christmas Child brings joy and hope to needy children around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes and the Good News of God’s love. They have delivered more than 100 million shoe box gifts to children in more than 130 countries. I had the opportunity to volunteer at one of their processing centers a couple of years ago. After that experience I have felt pulled to participate in this great ministry.
There are instructions on their website for How to Pack a Shoebox. Basically you pick a gender and an age group for a child you want to create a gift box for. We chose to do a box for a 2-4 year old girl and a 5-9 year old boy. That way they could pick out items that they would like themselves. We headed to Dollar Tree to do our shopping. We purchased the plastic shoe boxes there so we could make sure the items would fit.
- Crayons
- Toy Tiara
- Soft Baby Doll
- Magic Towel (will basically turn into wash cloth)
- Socks
- Ponytail Holders
- Hello Kitty Toothbrush
- Board Book
- Stickers
- Puzzle
I thought it might be more difficult to find items for the boy box since you have to be careful not to include any military items. It ended up being really easy and fun to find these items:
- Puzzle
- Toy Car
- Small Ball
- Toothbrushes
- Socks
- Race Car Building Kit (similar to Lego)
- Fireman/Construction Worker Mini Figures (similar to Lego)
- Magic Towel
- Word Search Book
- Pens
We also picked up some other items that we could split up between the boxes. A great tip that I found was to fill a small water bottle up with bandages or other small items.
- Box of Adhesive Bandages
- 2 Pack Bar Soap
- 3 Pack Mini Composition Books
- Lip Balm
- Water Bottles
- Tissues
This was such a great project. It was harder on Graylie since she is still young and wants all the toys for herself. We talked about how it is kind to help others and watched videos of the children receiving boxes in other countries.
This ended up being our project for Week 34 of the Pinterest Challenge. There are lots of great ideas on Pinterest for how to pack shoe boxes. There are people who pack a shoe box each month and also those who stock up on items all year to fill these shoe boxes. I highly encourage you to participate in this great cause! This year the National Collection Week is November 12 – 19, 2018. There are Shoebox Drop-Off Locations around the country or you can Build A Shoebox Online.
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