For those who deal with Operation Christmas Child 2022

[beaverpond]

I know this is not about Nascar or Racing, but I also know that a few of us do work on this project and thought I would share this information.

We had an excellent presentation from the person originally from Russia. Her and her sister were adopted by an American family and moved here when they were younger. I did not get to hear the whole presentation, but what part I did hear, it was an amazing story. And my what a difference between our part of the world and theirs.

There were three spokespersons from Operation Christmas Child here to answer questions for us as well. We learned that all soap must stay in its original wrapper. There have been issues with unwrapped bars of soap arriving to their destination with mold on them and items inside the shoebox. The other change for this year is the cost of shipping a shoebox is going up to $10...this is an increase of $1 per shoebox. When you think about it, where else can you send something anywhere in the world for just $10. This is an amazing deal when you think about it.

We also talked about the durability of a lot of the plastic boxes that are not the green and red OCC ones. They often arrive to the processing centers in pieces because they are not meant for those kind of travel conditions they are put through. They really do recommend the OCC ones because those have been field tested for durability. The OCC shoeboxes are usually 12 for $18 from OCC and that works out to $1.50 each and these are larger than a traditional shoebox. These are also available at Hobby Lobby for slightly more.