Size of OCC Shoebox Items

As another year of shopping for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes begins, it's time to think about what we're buying.  We make lists.  We also have to make decisions on individual items.  We make these based on appropriateness, quality, cost, etc.  Another thing to consider is size.  We have a limited amount of room to fill, and some things are just too big to start with.  Others just take up a lot of room.  While it's important  to have a "Wow" item something nice sized (we're instructed as a first step to "select a medium to large 'wow' item"),  there is also an advantage to small items.  Maybe our Wow item or just our lists of "must send" or something that was laid on our heart, or we found to send took up too much room, and we have trouble fitting everything in, that's when finding small things can help.  I tend to send mainly mid-sized items, but always like some small things to tuck in the corners and holes, it lets me put more things in, and gives them something to share if they should so desire.

As an example, I packed two shoeboxes, with the exact same list of items inside, just different sizes of those items.  Here's a mini and a massive box packed as an example (NOT actually sent).

Now, I think all of these items are great things to put in shoeboxes-almost all were just pulled out of shoebox packing stash, had their photo taken, and went back to be packed in shoeboxes in a more mixed manner.  I just don't think they should all be put together like this because it makes one box too big (I'm not even sure it would fit in the shipping carton) and one too small.  Operation Christmas Child tells us to "Start with an average-size cardboard or plastic shoebox."  and as you can see below, compared to an official OCC Go Box, they're nowhere near average.  The small one is a third the size of a Go Box, and the large boot one, the size of three!

Also, if you're curious, this is what the boxes looked like inside (remember, neither of these were sent, just put together as an example.

Now sometimes a larger item has obvious advantages of durability-how long the child will be able to use them:

Some things, it doesn't really matter about the size, for instance nail clips, so getting the smallest we can will give us more room.



And, sometimes, the smaller version of an item may actually be the more sturdy option.  Like this Hotwheel car that's die-cast compared to all plastic.

Here's a size comparison of the various items by category (with a list of what was included)

And, finally, just a cute photo of the dinosaurs for size comparison!