South Gate Alliance and Operation Christmas Child 2024
Our vision is to make 500 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child as one church and bring joy and the gospel to kids all over the world. This year, we're making boxes differently than usual. Instead of you making boxes and bringing them, we are gathering crafts, school supplies, and hygiene items and making the boxes together as one church in one afternoon in one giant assembly line.
This is the one ministry that is both outreach oriented and that we can do as ONE church, regardless of language and congregation. All fellowships and ministries and congregations will be participating. It is a unifying ministry opportunity to reach out and call people to serve and give, especially during Christmas.
- Our Goals
- Make and fill 500 boxes.
- Raise $6000 for the 500 boxes ($12 each for shipping and handling).
- Who can get involved?
- This is an outreach that South Gate Alliance, English, Cantonese and Mandarin congregations are doing together, from Children’s Ministry, Youth Ministry, up to adult ministries. Anyone can donate supplies or money, and assemble the 500 boxes on Saturday, Nov 23th.
- How can you help? There are five ways you can participate:
- Come to our packing party on November 23th to help assemble the 500 boxes.
- Help us reach out $6000 goal to ship the boxes.
- Donate through Samaritan's Purse's SGA fundraising portal
- Bring bottles/cartons for our bottle drive that ends Nov 24th. Each 5-10 cent bottle counts!
- Donate items for the shoeboxes. We need at least 500 of each basic item (like packs of crayons, notebooks or erasers) to make each of these boxes and 500 “WOW” items.
- You can still make and fill a whole shoebox as families like usual and bring them on Sundays.
- Pray and write letters for each of these boxes that they would be received with the gospel.
Saturday, Nov 23rd, 1-4pm Packing Party
The vision is for all three congregations, from children to youth, to young adults, to old adults, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English to come and participate in this fun event where we as a church assemble 500 boxes.
It will be a giant assembly line of individuals taking an empty box, and going through our line of tables and putting in school supplies, WOW items, toys, clothes, hygiene items and everything else. After this are tables to write a letter to whoever receives that shoebox you've assembled and for you to pray for them.
There will be food, fun and opportunities to connect to each other in service and ministry!
Bottle Drive
We are asking you to bring in your bottles and cartons as a donation that will go towards the $6000 fundraising goal. In the church are barrels to take your bottles over the next few weeks! Come help us raise funds to send our boxes!
Donating Shoebox Items - We are in need of a lot more of these items: hygiene products (tooth brushes, soap, face cloths, nail clippers, combs, etc), pencils, sharpeners and erasers and small craft kits. Please bring them if you can!
- We need more WOW items. Each box gets a "Wow" item that is super awesome and exciting that would bring great joy to the child recieving it. It's great to have a box filled with supplies and goods, but there should be at least one wow super item for each box and child. Here are some ideas of what those can be:
Harmonicas
Yo-yo
Solar calculator
Jump rope
Binoculars
Compass
Garden gloves and trowel
Magnets
Christmas beads
Flash lights with batteries
Small tools
Cool toys
Toy cars
Sunglasses
Deflated ball & pump
Outfit of clothes
