We are participating in the Operation Christmas Child program this year for the first time and we are excited to donate. This program is ran by Samaritan’s Purse and is a nationwide event. You can read more about OCC here or visit Samaritan’s Purse.
We are on a quest to pack 30 shoe boxes this year and one of the items we want to include is a small stuffed plush toy. Obviously going to the store to buy 30 of them would be quite pricey and frankly out of our budget. We’ve been looking for nearly new ones at garage sales with a little bit of luck, but we only had a few and OCC collection week is coming! (Nov 16-23, 2015).
We are active on a few local Facebook groups so I posted a message on the page asking if people had any small plush they would like to part with inexpensively.
Here is my post:
The response was wonderful!
We had 2 different people offer to donate their items! Another person used to collect Ty beanie babies and is selling them to us for $0.50 each. These are like new, with tag and have been stored for years. Score!
With the fantastic response we are going to be able to include 2 with each box and have some to set aside for 2016 and to share with other family members that are participating.
Remember, think outside the box and share this project with others that may not know about it.
I’ve also seen friends of ours posting on Facebook that they will pick up any Halloween candy (not including chocolate because you can not donate chocolate) that their friends or family won’t be eating to include with her shoe boxes.
Here is a photo of the huge bag of new plush that one local person donated:
Scoring these items for free or nearly free allows us to use more of our funds to buy the things that are needed by the children including:
- School Supplies: pens, pencils and sharpeners, crayons, markers, notebooks, paper, solar calculators, coloring and picture books, etc.
- Non-liquid Hygiene Items: toothbrushes, bar soap, combs, washcloths, etc.
- Accessories: T-shirts, socks, hats, sunglasses, hair clips, jewelry, watches, flashlights (with extra batteries), etc.
- Crafts: Make your own items such as hair bows, finger puppets, and friendship bracelets.
