Information for this year's Operation Christmas Child project has been distributed to all Weyburn area churches and schools, and collections have begun to fill shoe boxes for children in Third World countries.

Operation Christmas Child is co-ordinated by the Samaritan's Purse aid organization worldwide, helping to provide a shoe box-full of small gifts and personal care items for children of all age groups; the Weyburn Free Methodist Church serves as the local area collection depot for shoe boxes, co-ordinated by Bev Alexander.

A display has been set up in the Weyburn Square Mall, showing the variety of items that are suitable to pack into a shoe box, ranging from personal care items (like soap, hair care products and toothpaste) to small toys suitable to the age and sex of the child to receive the gift.

There are also brochures and empty shoe boxes available at the mall and at the church for anyone who would like to fill one to send to a needy child, said Alexander.

Boxes which are packed and sent from Canada will be going to the following countries this year: Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cambodia, Vietnam, Ivory Coast, Benin, Costa Rica and Mexico.

"Last year, Weyburn and area packed 758 shoe boxes. We'd like to try to make it 1,000 boxes this year," said Alexander. The local deadline is Monday, Nov. 20 for boxes to be delivered to the Weyburn collection depot at the Free Methodist Church, so they can be packed up and sent to Regina, and on to Calgary before being sent overseas.

Alexander had a first-hand look at where the shoe boxes end up, as she travelled to Mexico last year and was part of a distribution team. They distributed 500 shoe boxes in one village, 75 in a second village and 300 in a third.

A special moment for her was finding a shoe box that had been sent by the nurses of 1B Unit at Souris Valley Extended Care Centre, which had been part of a group of boxes delivered to her home by Cindy Morrice last November. She was able to give this box to a boy in the 10-14 age group in the village of Santa Cruz Almolonsa Seccion Alta.

At the third village, she gave a shoe box that had been packed by Paige Grams of Weyburn.

For more information call the collection depot at the Free Methodist Church, or co-ordinator Bev (Norman) Alexander at her Goodwater-area home.