Volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child are gearing up for their spring bottle drive.
The bottle drive raises money to help fill shoeboxes for their annual Christmas campaign where shoeboxes are filled with school supplies, toys, and hygiene items, and handed out to children in countries around the world who are experiencing famine, war, and poverty.
This past Christmas, residents in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows packed 4,247 shoeboxes, which were sent to countries in West Africa, including Cape Verde, in addition to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ukraine and the Philippines.
Worldwide 2.3 million children received a gift-filled shoebox.
Samaritan’s Purse is an international evangelical Christian relief agency. The organization has been providing spiritual and physical aid to people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine, since 1970. Shoeboxes also include a 12-lesson discipleship course book for children to read called “The Greatest Journey”.
The bottle drive will be taking place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 14, at Ridge Church, 22155 Lougheed Hwy., Maple Ridge.
This is the first bottle drive of the year for Operation Christmas Child. The summer bottle drive will be taking place Saturday, June 13; and the fall bottle drive will be taking place on Saturday, Sept. 12.
This year National Collection Week for Christmas shoeboxes will be from Nov. 16-22.
For more information go to: https://www.samaritanspurse.ca/operation-christmas-child.