Churches and community groups across Winn Parish worked over recent months to assemble and provide 3,090 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes that will become part of a “Gospel Opportunity” for an expected 11 million children worldwide this Christmas season.  Locally numerous volunteers made this Winn outreach possible.

This, according to Jeanine Ford, area coordinator for west-central Louisiana which includes Winn, Natchitoches, Red River and Sabine, who said the total is made up of 28 churches and two community groups (Winn 4-H Junior Leaders and Six-C Fabrications).  The trail taken by the boxes began in homes, then moved into the churches, then to the parish central collection site at First Baptist Winnfield, on to the Natchitoches area center and then to the Dallas regional center.

Operation Christmas Child is a Samaritan’s Purse project that collects shoebox gifts filled with fun toys, school supplies, and personal care items—and delivers them to children in need around the world to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way.

Individuals pack and label each shoebox depending if it is packed for a boy or girl and the age category: 2–4, 5–9, or 10–14.

Samaritan’s Purse serves the church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The organization, headed by Franklin Graham, is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity and has been helping in Jesus’ Name since 1970. Charity Navigator gives them their highest rating of four-stars.

“Operation Christmas Child” began in the UK in 1990, after Dave Cooke, a local businessman in Wrexham, and his wife Jill felt called to do something in response to the plight of Romanian orphans at the end of the Cold War.  Samaritan’s Purse has taken on the project since 1993.