LOADING

Type to search

Athletics Featured

Athletes participate in annual Operation Christmas Child

Share

For 11 years now, the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) has gathered and packed items for Operation Christmas Child (OCC), a global Christmas gift exchange project operated by Samaritan’s Purse. Reps from each athletic team gather and fill shoeboxes with toys, stuffed animals, crayons, coloring books, and more that will be shipped to less fortunate children globally. Every item has been donated by SAAC members and athletic programs. This year, they collected enough donations to fill 81 boxes. Well done, student-athletes!

How do these acts of kindness affect those we give to?

We asked Keren, who was a recipient of gifts from Operation Christmas Child when she was a kid, what those boxes meant to her.

Keren“I remember receiving the OCC boxes at church, they would announce the date of the arrival of the boxes, the day of the distribution (typically on Sundays) and what room we needed to go to in order to receive them. Those Sundays were the best, they were filled with excitement and curiosity. I asked myself, ‘what am I getting this year’? Socks? Toys? Stickers? (which by the way, were my favorites), Hair bands/hair ties? Candies? Soaps? These gifts made my childhood better, to this day, my friends and I talk about the things we got.”

“I have to admit that I did not realize the impact these gifts had on me until I was an adult. At 23 years old, I was going through a hard season in my life, my faith was weakened, I was broken on so many levels. I was almost giving up on my faith when God led me to my church. The first time I showed up just happened to be the day that the congregants brought the boxes back so they could be transported to an OCC receiving center, all the boxes were lined up on the stage. Seeing those boxes that Sunday reminded me that I mattered, that I was still loved and that it would never change. Seeing those boxes reminded me of the love of God, how he found me when I was a little girl in Lubumbashi (DRCongo) and how he found me again here in Maine as an adult. I don’t think I will ever be able to explain exactly what I felt that day. It was a good feeling I was like ‘wow, no matter where I go God will find me’.”

“After being here and seeing that people are willingly to give to children they don’t know, to children who will never be able to give back, it changed the meaning of giving for me.”

⇒ Make sure to watch for the video we’re releasing on our Instagram account (SaintJosephsCollege) around Christmas!