Operation Christmas Child in Full Swing

The Hawaiʻi Police Department’s Operation Christmas Child drive, which was completed at the end of November, collected 6,103 gift-filled shoeboxes in East Hawaiʻi for a total of 10,827 for the entire island.

Operation Christmas Child. HPD photo.

Project Operation Christmas Child collects shoebox gifts filled with fun toys, school supplies and hygiene items and delivers them to children in need around the world. For many of these children, the gift-filled shoebox is the first gift they have ever received.

Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child, the world’s largest Christmas project of its kind, has collected and delivered more than 146 million shoebox gifts to children in more than 160 countries and territories.

In 2017, Operation Christmas Child hopes to collect enough shoebox gifts to reach another 12 million children in countries like Peru, Philippines, Rwanda and Ukraine. Nearly 11.5 million shoebox gifts were collected worldwide in 2016, with more than 9.1 million received in the U.S.

We collect the shoebox gifts up to the week before Thanksgiving so that drive is over. However, people can go to the website and pack a gift box online or make monetary donations at www.samaritanspurse.org anytime.