Volunteers have been working tirelessly at Decatur-area collection sites where thousands of shoe boxes packed with school supplies, toys and necessity items were dropped off by caring area residents. National Col-lection Week is wrapping up for the world’s largest Christmas project of its kind—Operation Christ-mas Child—where participants fill empty shoe boxes with items for kids suffering from natural disaster, war, terrorism, famine and poverty. Soon, these shoe boxes will be delivered to 8.5 million kids worldwide.

For families who haven’t yet packed their gift of hope, it’s not too late. Many local families are choosing to pack shoe box gifts virtually through “Build a Box,” an online giving tool. It’s a simple, quick, yet meaningful way to impact a child in need. Volunteers can visit the project’s website at www.samaritanspurse.org/occ, select a child’s age and gender, shop through an online selection of gifts, “pack” them in an empty shoe box, and finish it off with a note of encouragement. Then through tracking technology, donors can “follow” the box to the destination country where it will be hand-delivered.

Operation Christmas Child, a project of international Christian relief and evangelism organization Samaritan’s Purse, uses simple gift-filled shoe boxes to let hurting children know they are loved and not forgotten. For many of these children, the simple shoe box will be the first gift they have ever received.

Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has hand-delivered more than 86 million gift-filled shoe boxes to needy children in more than 130 countries.