Operation Christmas Child kicks off
A Ugandan child poses with a box he received from Operation Christmas Child.
Nathaniel Mikec, son of Anton Mikec, chief operating officer of Lighthouse Electric, loads a box during a company packing party for Operation Christmas Child. The project, sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse, provides shoeboxes filled with gifts for needy children around the world. Lighthouse workers, families and other volunteers filled more than 10,000 boxes this year.
Courtesy of Anton Mikec The first 5,000 boxes were packed by corporate sponsors last Friday.
In 2008, Anton Mikec, chief operating officer of Lighthouse Electric, attended a leadership conference where Franklin Graham, founder of Samaritan’s Purse, spoke.
Mikec found himself inspired by Graham as he talked about the impact of Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan’s Purse that provides gift-filled shoeboxes to children in need around the world.
“We came back and said we’re going to engage our company in this,” Mikec said.
He purchased items to fill the shoeboxes and organized a packing party, and that first year, the company and its employees produced 111 boxes that were shipped to children all over the world.
In 2012, they more than doubled that total, filling 229 boxes. In 2013, they packed 3,481 boxes, and in both 2014 and 2015, Lighthouse filled more than 10,000 boxes.
In recognition of his efforts, Mikec has been invited to accompany Operation Christmas Child staff and volunteers to the Dominican Republic in January to deliver those shoeboxes.
“It’s the other half of the equation. To see the kids’ faces when they open the boxes, I’m looking forward to seeing that,” said Mikec, who noted that more than 40 business partners, family and friends contributed to the project and K-Love helped coordinate volunteers for the Nov. 13 packing party.
“It’s a blessing to the children who receive it and a blessing to us here organizing and packing.”
Operation Christmas Child’s National Collection Week is underway and runs through Nov. 23.
Christine Hainer, coordinator for the Southwestern Pennsylvania team, said last year the organization collected 10.4 million shoebox gifts that reached boys and girls in 118 countries.
Its mission is to do the same this year, and she noted that with the help of Lighthouse Electric and groups such as the Washington Hospital School of Nursing, Operation Christmas Child will reach its goal.
Valerie Shaw, nursing school faculty adviser, said Washington Hospital nursing students who belong to Student Nurses’ Association of Pennsylvania decided to participate after they heard about the program from Gaye Falletta, director of the School of Nursing.
Donation boxes were displayed for two weeks in the hospital’s main lobby and in the School of Nursing building, and donations from hospital employees and community members were taken to an Operation Christmas Child donation site in South Franklin Township, where nursing students filled 62 shoeboxes.
“I think it’s wonderful and so nice to know there are people who are out there who care and are willing to support us. I’m glad they participated with us,” Hainer said.
Among the children who received Operation Christmas Child’s gift-filled shoeboxes in 2014 were boys and girls whose families had been driven from their homes by ISIS and were forced to spend the winter in makeshift shelters in northern Iraq’s Kurdish regions.
Since 1993, Samaritan’s Purse has collected and delivered more than 124 million gift-filled shoeboxes in more than 150 countries and territories through Operation Christmas Child.
Boxes typically are filled with school supplies, toiletries, clothes, hard candy and toys.
Shoebox gifts are collected in the United States, Australia, Finland, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Spain and England.
More than 500,000 volunteers worldwide, with more than 100,000 Americans, are involved in collecting, shipping and distributing shoebox gifts.
Samaritan’s Purse and its partners will deliver the gifts to children in more than 100 countries.
Participants can follow their box online to discover where their gift is delivered by using the donation form found at samaritanspurse.org/occ.
Collection centers in Washington and Greene counties are: The Bible Chapel, 300 Galley Road, McMurray; McDonald Presbyterian Church, 202 W. Lincoln Ave., McDonald; Oak View United Methodist Church, 160 Rolling Meadows Road, Waynesburg; South Franklin Community Building, 100 Municipal Road, Washington; and Trinity Church, 550 S. Main St., Washington.