Students at Lisgar Collegiate Institute are already in the Christmas spirit as they fill shoeboxes with gifts for less fortunate children in Africa and Central America.
Clara Lu and Chris Cooper, both Grade 12 students, are co-heading the project called Operation Christmas Child. They are expecting to collect about 35 shoeboxes filled with toys for boys and girls ranging in age from 2 to 14.
Cooper says the response has been good this year.
“It’s more interesting than just giving money to a charity,” Cooper says.
Susan Henderson, the staff advisor for the project, says this is the eighth year the school has taken part in collecting the shoeboxes.
"When you think of that one child in Africa or Central America who is getting just one little cardboard box full of toys and items and how happy it makes them then it makes a huge impact,” says Lu.
Many institutions, such as schools and churches, take part in the operation, headed by an organization called Samaritan’s Purse. Lu says the school is sending boxes to Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ghana and Sierra Leone.
“It makes me feel good because there are a lot of good people, a lot of good kids at the school but there is no way for them to directly impact other people,” Cooper says.
Lu and Cooper collected the boxes last month. Lu says they have to make sure the toys are appropriate.
“There are little army men that may seem appropriate for a child here in Canada where there are no wars, but in a country with civil wars it may just scare them,” she says. “That’s my favourite part of the project because you get to see how much care people have taken in getting to fill the boxes and trying to make them personal.”