I know many people wonder what happens at the Operation Christmas Child Processing centers. Since I haven't been in a few years, I asked Stephanie Seymore who is an Area Coordinator for Lower Eastern NC area team and runs the FACEBOOK page called "Shoebox Shoppers" to share about it.
A day at the Processing Center
If you love to pack
shoeboxes and haven’t had an opportunity to go to one of the Operation
Christmas Child Processing Centers you need to try and make it happen. There
are processing centers in Baltimore, MD, Charlotte, NC, Boone, NC, Atlanta, GA,
Dallas, Tx, Minneapolis, MN, Denver, CO and Orange County, CA. OCC headquarters
are in Boone and the largest processing center by far is the one in
Charlotte. The Boone and Charlotte PC’s
are permanent. Boone is the headquarters for all the Samaritan’s Purse ministries
and Charlotte houses the offices for the Carolina’s Region (the region I
volunteer in) and processes the largest number of boxes by far. The others may
change their location in that city from one year to the next as they are just
there seasonally.
If you are new to
shoeboxes you may not understand what the whole “processing” thing means. Each box that is collected around the country
must go through a processing center. The $7 $9 shipping donation is removed or if
you chose to do your shipping donation online and track your box, it will be
scanned at the processing center. Each
box will be inspected to make sure there are no inappropriate items
inside. If inappropriate items are found
they are removed and ideally filler items are added to replace them. Inappropriate items include food, seeds, breakables,
war related items, used items, weapons, and starting this year candy and
toothpaste. In addition to removing and replacing inappropriate items,
unfortunately there are many boxes that are very under packed and these need
filer items added to make each box something a child would love to receive.
(more on fillers later)
To make this whole
process of inspecting millions of shoeboxes happen (in about 3 ½ weeks) the
ministry needs lots of volunteers. That’s
where we come in. :) Starting in late July or early August an online site
opens through the ministry that allows people to sign up to come and volunteer
at one of the PC’s. You can go online
and register for yourself individually or for a group if you want to bring a
church or some other group together. My
church takes a bus and we take between 40-50 each year for 2 days of
volunteering. I’m sharing about the experience you might have at the Charlotte
PC. The others are smaller and may have
some difference.
When you reserve your
spots online you will receive some information to fill out in advance to help
the whole process go smoother when you show up for your shift. If you are in charge of a group you can get
all this paperwork from them as well.
I’m not sure how all the other PC’s work but the Charlotte PC has a list
of hotels nearby that offer reduced rates for OCC volunteers.
Usually the spots to
volunteer fill up quickly so you want to reserve early. The Charlotte PC can
handle well over 1000 volunteers at a time and this year they processed right
around 2 ½ million shoeboxes in that 3 ½ week period. I was able to go twice this year and work
several different jobs. Over the years I
have done just about every job that is available and all of them are great fun!
When you show up to
work your shift at the PC you will sign yourself or your group in with the
person at the door. You have your
prefilled out paperwork and everyone gets his or her nametags. Various groups of around 50 get taken to
various areas to watch a video welcome from Franklin Graham along with a video
about the various things that will be happening during your visit. This year there was a new video and it was
really cute. Afterward there is someone to answer questions. This whole process takes about 10
minutes. If you are working multiple
shifts/days you only need to go through this process once.
Once you are finished
with orientation you go to the placers.
I got to do this job this year for a morning and I have a lot of respect
and appreciation for these workers. It’s
a stressful job. Basically as the groups
come up to be assigned there is a big board listing all the processing tables,
filler areas, hospital, seated jobs, heavy lifting jobs etc. and that person
keeps track of where everyone is going, how many people are in each place, how
long they are staying etc. For the
Charlotte PC that can be well over 1000 people.
The board looks like a very large version of what a waitress uses at a
large restaurant to keep track of where everyone is going.
Once they determine
how many are in your group you wait in line until you are escorted to your work
area. At this point if you have males in
your group they get excited and always ask if they are available to do heavy
lifting jobs. Our church has always
brought about 6 or so men including my husband and oldest son and they feel
very special at this point. 😊 This year we had about 17 men so everyone was very glad
to see us. If you have someone in your
group that can’t stand for long periods they take them to the various sit down
jobs. Usually they can bag soap and other
filler items at tables. If they need
people to work in the shoebox hospital repacking boxes that have broken or that
have been damaged by liquids they will ask for volunteers and take you to those
areas. The same applies for the various
filler items. They need people to
continually fill up the bins that contain filler items at each table. This is a
busy job because so many boxes come in under filled and need a lot of help to
make them able to be sent out. At the
PC’s we plow through filler and often there isn’t enough. (side note) Everyone
is welcome to send in extra filler items when they come to volunteer but in
theory we can’t make a dent with our donated filler. What we need are LARGE donations from
businesses and corporations to fill the need.
I’m not saying not to send filler.
But please don’t stop packing boxes just to focus on the filler. The ministry expressly asked us to tell
people that. We need all the boxes we
can get to reach all the many needy kiddos.
What each of us can do is help teach people how to pack a good, full
box. Everyone can educate.
There are runners who
take each group to their assigned area.
In Charlotte there
I stopped in Mighty Dollar to look for more of these foam puzzles-thankfully they still had some left in stock, and the clerk helpfully got me this box to carry them out in. I plan to split each one up into 6 different kits with instructions and put them in the 5-9 year olds shoeboxes I plan to pack with the kids at church.
