The crew that loaded boxes into the U-Haul truck to go to Plattsburgh. (Provided photo)

To the editor:

Thank you to all the individuals, groups and churches that participated in assembling shoebox gifts for children around the world as part of Operation Christmas Child. The High Peaks Church drop-off location saw a record number of 2,480 shoeboxes that were sent to Plattsburgh as the next stop on their journey to children around the world. The northern Adirondack region collected 11,323 shoeboxes that are now on their way to Baltimore, Maryland, to be prepared to leave the country to go to children around the world and for children to hear about Jesus. The northern Adirondack region covers the counties of St. Lawrence, Essex, Franklin and Clinton.

Operation Christmas Child is a part of Samaritan’s Purse, and you can find more information about Operation Christmas Child at www.samaritanspurse.org/OCC. If you would still like to send a shoebox to a child, you can build a box online through this website also. If you paid your donation to cover shipping and other costs to deliver your shoebox online, you can go to the www.samaritanspurse.org/operation-christmas-child/follow-your-box-lookup and enter the email address you used when you made your payment or the bar code number on the label you used to mark the gender and age for your box. You need to just keep checking throughout the month of December until your boxes are processed and the information is uploaded to the look-up tool system.

In the last few years, boxes from the Tri-Lakes area have gone to various South African countries (Lesotho, Eswatini, South Africa), along with Haiti, Honduras and Columbia.

If you have any questions about Operation Christmas Child or are interested in participating in 2025, please leave a message for Sarah Kilby at High Peaks Church, at 518-891-3255 or highpeakschurch@gmail.com.

Sarah Kilby

Saranac Lake