GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — Monday was the last day of Samaritan's Purse, Operation Christmas Child 2022 season. The Highland Crest Baptist Church is one of the two drop-off sites in Northeast Wisconsin.
As the season wrapped up, the number of shoebox donations hit a major milestone.
Sherri Schoenbeck, the area’s coordinator says that this year was a terrific year.
“This year we are going to hand out of 200 millionth shoebox to a child in Ukraine,” she said.
The annual shoebox donations have been spreading Christmas cheer to kids in need since the 1970s, and there was no shortage of charity this year.
“We have had churches, individuals, families all kinds of groups dropping off donations,” said Schoenbeck.
One church dropped off a total of 240 shoe boxes collected over the last month.
Nicole Tilot is a first-year shoeboxer who joined the movement because of her in-laws, but after experiencing packing the box, she's hooked.
“We had a lot of fun actually, I was getting stuff, he was getting stuff, then when we put them together we were like ‘what age are we even packing for’ we were too excited to get things together that we forget what we were planning.’”
The season may be over but you can get involved for next year here.
