Operation Christmas Child: Local effort sends 1,300 love-stuffed shoeboxes around the globe

Volunteers descended upon an Aquebogue church Saturday afternoon to pack up some 1,300 shoeboxes stuffed with goodies bound for children around the world.

Each year, Operation Christmas Child, the shoebox gift ministry of Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, distributes the packages — containing items like toothbrushes and toothpaste, school supplies, balls, small toys and trinkets— to millions of children across the globe.

For the past 14 years, the local OCC effort has been spearheaded by a North Fork father-daughter duo, Reggie Peterson of East Marion and Cathy Wood of Riverhead. On Saturday, the pair delivered 1,223 boxes to the fellowship hall at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church. They start packing shoeboxes in May of each year.

Wood reckons they’ve packed up more than 11,000 boxes over the years.

They got involved as a way to honor Wood’s favorite cousin, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and died 15 years ago, Wood said.

“She loved children and she loved Jesus, and this is all about loving children and loving Jesus,” Wood said. “She was everybody’s favorite aunt. This was a healing process for us,” Wood said.

Her father, an 87-year-old decorated WWII veteran, has a novelty shop in East Marion where he sells glass bottles and golf balls. A devout Christian, Peterson uses the income from his shop to support the Operation Christmas Child shoebox ministry.

Peterson and a handful of volunteers paused to form a prayer circle in the fellowship hall, which was abuzz with the activity of more than 30 people sorting and packing shoeboxes into large cardboard cartons.

The cartons are trucked to the Church on the Sound in Stony Brook, where they are checked, sorted according to age and gender and labeled for shipment overseas, said volunteer Danielle McCarty, Operation Christmas Child area coordinator for Suffolk County. The organization will send more than 9 million boxes to 130 different countries this year, McCarty said.

“Knowing what these gifts mean to children is inspiring,” Wood said. “In many places, if children don’t have school supplies, they’re not allowed in school. Children share toothbrushes or have none at all,” she said. “One little girl was perplexed to find candy in her shoe box,” Wood said.

“‘Don’t these people know only rich people have candy?’ she asked.”

Samaritan’s Purse, founded in 1970 and run by Franklin Graham, is “a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world,” according to the organization’s website.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
Click thumbnails to enlarge images
{gallery}cssgallery/2012_1117_christmas_child{/gallery}