DCTC Clubs Send Gifts to Uganda

Business Professionals of America and Christians on Campus share holiday joy to children throughout the world by volunteering at Operation Christmas Child.

BPA and COC package shoeboxes at Operation Christmas Child

On Dec. 6, 2012, two student clubs from Dakota County Technical College ran into each other off campus. Both clubs had a specific goal in mind: helping children throughout the world.

Christians on Campus and Business Professionals of America student members volunteered at the Operation Christmas Child processing center in Minneapolis. Since its founding in October 1990, Operation Christmas Child has impacted millions of lives. This year alone, the Minneapolis OCC processing center will ship 685,000 shoeboxes to children around the world. The boxes are filled with toys, school supplies, hygiene items and clothes.

Rebekah Voight, president of Christians on Campus, explained, “We thought it would be a great outreach opportunity for our club.”

The boxes that DCTC’s COC and BPA clubs assembled will go to churches in Uganda, where they will be distributed to children in need, ranging in age from two to 14. “For most children, this shoebox will one of the only gifts they have ever received,” said Anna Voight, assistant director of student life at DCTC. “A scissor received in a shoebox may be the only scissor in the whole village and could mean the start of a career for someone.”

Vadym Snesrud, BPA charity chair, recalls a student volunteer at OCC who later told the following story about a girl helped by the charity:

When the girl was younger, she and her little brother received one of these shoebox gifts. They lived in an orphanage in Guatemala and the girl had never received anything like it before. She remembered that the gift she cherished most out of her shoebox was a doll and a small Bible. Since that day, she led many other people to Christianity.

“This was a humbling and heartwarming experience that was shared by all the volunteers,” said Snesrud. And for Rebekah Voight, her favorite part of the experience was “seeing that each box had been packed lovingly by someone.”

More than 10,000 volunteers will assemble shoeboxes at the Minneapolis processing center this year. To learn more about Operation Christmas Child, visit Samaritans Purse.