It Takes a Family to Plan a Spur of the Moment Packing Party for OCC

They say "it takes a village to raise a child."  We now say, "it takes a family to pull together a last minute packing party of 100+ shoe box gifts for Operation Christmas Child."  As I explained in my earlier post, "Spur of the Moment Packing Party for 100 OCC Boxes ~ "On a Wing and a Prayer"," my daughter was asked to put together and shop for a shoe box packing party for our AWANA kids at church in two weeks time.  As this is not her only responsibility we have joined along side of her to help her pull it off on a limited time and financial budget.

Some of the things we have been able to help her with:


Dad

• Double checking figures for finances.
• Folding lined and plain paper for school packets.

• Side note:  this is a "folding machine" he built for the girls years ago when they were folding the church's newsletter each month.  They used it for years to fold hundreds of newsletters until the church got an electronic folding machine.  It came in handy to fold up the paper to tuck in the shoe boxes.
• Cutting apart multi-packs of toothbrushes.
• Tag along shopping partner and chief figurer for using $5 off $30 Dollar General Coupons most efficiently.

• 

  Dad said he was going to have to watch a lot of football
  while cutting apart bags of these toothbrushes.

Mom

• Searching for printable Dollar General Coupons availability.
• Bagging candy.
• Bagging crayons.
• Bagging hygiene supplies.
• Sewing dresses (and bagging them :-) ).
• Sharing OCC stockpile.
• Cutting scarves.

Sister

• Eagle eyes at the closeout store's massive inventory and spying missed items which were  needed.
• Check out these adorable toys spotted (below).
• Sharing list she made of items we include in our shoe boxes each year to be sure all the basics are covered.
• Retriever of empty boxes from the attic for sorting.
• Sorting stuffed animals for age/gender appropriateness.
  
  

  

  Just 99 cents at the local closeout store--they are wooden.

Everyone

• Ever available for encouragement and excitement.
• On standby as extra hands when and where needed.

Our family works this way...together.  What ever one is passionate about and working on we all work on.  One day in a deacons' meeting when my husband, then chairman, was presenting a project he was in charge of, the pastor asked at one point which of us came up with that part.  He knows how we work...together.

Follow along with our family as I share our journey of The Spur of The Moment Operation Christmas Child Packing Party of 2013.