How to get your Kids involved in OCC

Hello Packers!

     What I have found that is common in OCC Packers is the love for children. Seriously, if you go onto the Operation Christmas Child Facebook page you see TONS of loving comments and advice. It's truly heartwarming. Anyway, another tidbit I realized was that a lot of packers have children or are starting families while continuing to donate to the wonderful cause of OCC. 

     Children love to be taught new things, exposed to new experiences and believe it or not, a lot of children are more generous than we like to believe. Children live and act by examples set forth by their family figures and that's where Operation Christmas Child comes into play. But, something that can be a bit of a concern for packers all around are the means to how we introduce Operation Chirstmas Child to our children and how to get them involved/interested in OCC.

VEGGIE TALES:

     Something that came about two years before I was born was the glorious idea by the original Big Idea company was Veggie Tales. Originated with a cucumber named Larry and a tomato named Bob, veggies have helped the stories of God's work impact young children through two decades now. The idea is still as relevant as it is today for the children of today. Which is why I'm glad that Veggie Tales has paired up with Operation Christmas Child and made this great video:

Veggie Tales is one of my favorite animated choices for God's works and to really relate to children. I specifically like this one because Larry and Bob are my favorite characters and they tie into my childhood. When I was looking into packing party ideas, especially ones that include children, they mention playing something along the lines of this video first to get the children excited to be like Bob and Larry and pack a shoe box. 

This is another great option from Veggie Tales and it is all about the origins of St. Nicholas and the story and meaning behind giving gifts during the holidays. I think this is a good one to play in either the background or to play while you are still setting up the boxes or the packing supplies. Veggie Tales really does help in relating to children in religious aspects and I thank Veggie Tales for all that they've done for my religious journey and this is a great idea for your kids to get into the spirit of giving.

OCC VIDEOS:

     Operation Christmas Child's motives are heart warming and reading about the stories are absolutely wonderful however from a child's point of view, videos tend to be a bit more motivating. One of the videos that I came across was motivating on my side and I have seen posts that use this video as well to help children and people who don't know about Operation Christmas Child's mission.

     This video was attached to the post that lead me to Operation Christmas Child and it is such an impacting short video that can help children relate to OCC. I also like this video for young children because it is pretty upbeat and tells the message of OCC through the impact on children. It's no lie that children relate to children regardless of situation and this video can help with that. 

DUCKY DYNASTY UNCLE SI VIDEO:

     One of the most beloved Louisiana families, the Robertson's, has been booming across the nation as the most favorite Christian family on TV with Christian values and the love for the Second Amendment. The oldest son happens to be a Pastor like his father and does a video for Operation Christmas Child with the absolutely favorite uncle, Uncle Si. Uncle Si is a super fun and familiar old man that every one of us should have in our family so his video sends us some laughs and see another celebrity packing boxes so the children can relate.

BOX SHOPPING:

    Something that I have yet to do but I should do within the next year or so is to create a video for you all of myself shopping for my boxes rather than just post photos but something that is another great part of Operation Christmas Child is that it is for children, which makes it so much easier for children to want to get involved. Children love picking out toys for themselves but how about taking your child/children to the Dollar Tree or some other store and have your age appropriate child pick out items for an age appropriate child? What person knows what children like better than a child?

     I like the idea of taking your child out to the store because they see what they like, they know what they like but when they think about other children, they take more time and consideration into what they want to buy for others.

PACKING PARTIES:

     Packing parties can help your child and their friends get into the spirit of giving and can become a tradition in your child's group of friends for years to come. Packing parties are meant to bring you, your child and maybe some neighborhood friends or family members together to pack shoe boxes with whatever you guys have available for the boxes. I like this idea a lot because it makes a party out of the shoe box experience and what child doesn't like parties and parties add to the fun aspect of it. Of course it isn't meant to get rid of the overall meaning of the box packing. :)

Well, that is all I can really think about to get children involved in packing shoe boxes and I hope that they help you in getting your kiddos involved in such a great organization. :)

Happy Packing!

Box Theme: PINK!!!

Hello Packers!

     Don't we all just get tickled pink when we come up with a great theme or item for our boxes? Well, I got that feeling while packing these awesome pink shoe boxes for some super sweet girls. I will say that I broke a little rule for myself and I made three boxes for the girl age group of 5-9. Why? Well, unfortunately when looking for pink items in the time of Easter...you find a lot of items that are just a tad bit too young for the older age group. Oh well. Anyway, here is my set of pictures for these sweet little boxes.

All three of my boxes had these items in them. I came across the ball, bunny ears, bunny socks, that long spiky ball wand, pink bag and set of pink yarn at Target for $0.30 each. The pink cup came from a 4 for 99 cent sale at the 99 cent store. From the blogs I follow, bunny ears or something along those lines make for a fun gift for them to immediately put on when they open their boxes. I like it so far because it is a good combination of girly stuff but also a slightly tomboy aspect (i.e. the ball). Something I read said that a girl in Zambia was actually playing ball with the other boys and she got a baseball in her box. I played ball when I was a little girl and athletics are practiced all around the world so if you want to include something like that, go for a ball of some sort.

 Pink Pink Everywhere. I love how the colors came together together for this box and I included a lot of my previous shopping items from my Valentines' Day shopping trips.  

The "My Color is Pink" coloring set is what gave me the inspiration for an all pink shoe box. I was wondering about the coloring book but I flipped through the pages and they are pretty age appropriate. 

The other two boxes had a big pink stuffed Teddy Bear and let me tell you, it was NOT easy to get these big teddies into the boxes along with everything I showed you above. But the struggle was worth it as two girls got some really cute teddies and another girl got one of those Beanie Boos from Ty. 

I know this post isn't that great as I am trudging through a cold right now but I hope this gives some inspiration for a theme box for you great packers. PS: I unfortunately couldn't retrieve my old photos about the Dinosaur theme boxes but I will let you know that they were made for the boy's age group 5-9. That is a tad bit funny I suppose as my sets of three theme boxes are going for the 5-9 age groups. Any-who, I have officially 53 boxes down and who knows how many to go. Prayers for the boxes and that I can use my resources to fill as many boxes as I possibly can this year.

Happy Packing!

My 50th Shoe Box!!!!! 3/14/16

Hello Packers!

     Well, if you have been following my blog since the beginning then you would know that my shoe box goal for this year is to fill 50 shoe boxes and to have a lot of boy shoe boxes because they aren't supported as much as girls. Today marks the day I filled my fiftieth shoe box and in celebration of that, I wanted to show you all the process and what went into the shoe box. It was truly a wonderful blessing to be able to fill these shoe boxes and write individual letters for each and every one of them. Without further ado, here is my fiftieth shoe box!

WHAT WENT INSIDE:

This was an exciting find for any of us out there that have been raised off of Gerber baby food and products knows that Gerber is the go-to for baby-toddler products. I ended up finding this wonderful sippy cup the Dollar Tree in Roseville. If those of you in California need a Dollar Tree to go to where there are great opportunities for crafting materials and school supplies, sometimes they have more than other Dollar Trees so I recommend that one for your Shoe Box needs.

I included a lot of fun-oriented items for his box: three sticker pages, a set of crayons, a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse coloring book, a World Beanie Baby, Stacking Cups, that red Valentine's Light up wand and a stencil stick. Like always, along with go-to necessities, remember these are children that could have had their childhood stripped from them: fun things are a must.

School Supplies is a must in any box for any age group so I included: a Dodgers notepad with a matching pen, five Avengers pencils, five black pens, five pencil eraser toppers, a Dr. Seuss eraser, a heart pencil sharpener and a duct tape pencil holder. 

So, if you guys have ever looked at some of the Facebook Operation Christmas Child pages then you would know about the multiple Instagram accounts that are available to give out OCC deals. One of them that I follow told us about a set of crayons that were wrongly priced at Walgreens and were coming out to 20 cents each. Of course, I was excited and went. Alas, they were all gone but as you can see there, there were Gildan sweatshirts that were originally 4 dollars that were 75% off! This was such a blessing to get sweatshirts on sale for only $1. So I included a sweatshirt, a set of socks and a wash cloth. 

Lastly, hygienic items are always a top item in our boxes because we don't know their living situations and some might only get that much toothpaste in their entire year or have never had toothpaste before. I recommend getting the largest tube no matter what. Along with that I included: a toothbrush, a bar of hypoallergenic soap, facial tissue, a comb and a Fantastic Four tote bag for him to hold all his goodies.

PROCESS:

So, the first thing I do is put the stickers at the bottom so that they won't bend or fall from the page when in the box and I also put the coloring book upward in the back of the box because it fills up the entire length of the shoe box and I can bend it over the rest of the goodies to ensure everything fits.

Every water bottle should be used to hold other objects so I used the sippy cup as a holder for his erasers, pencil sharpener, wash cloth and the set of socks.

After I filled the sippy cup, I placed it in first along with the other large item, the sweatshirt, because those are the ones that you want to be able to fit no matter what. 

At the bottom I placed the comb and stencil because they are thin and don't take up much space, after that I placed the pens and pencils down between the sweatshirt and coloring book. Over those, the toothpaste and the tooth brush fit absolutely perfectly.

After that, I added the pencil pouch, the notepad and the beanie baby. It might not look like it from here but there is still a lot of space in this box.

I'll admit that I forgot about the stacking cups so this became a bit more difficult. I placed the cups at the base of the beanie baby and after some maneuvering, I was able to get it to stick between the beanie baby and the soap.  The light up wand fit in as well but was too thick for the box to close on top so fingers crossed.

I placed the tote bag behind the coloring book and placed the tissue right next to the Beanie Baby. What isn't shown in the picture is a small box of Sweet Hearts that I put underneath the light up wand. Like I said, it doesn't appear that way from the image but there was quite a bit of space in the shoe box left.

After writing out a kind letter and surrounding the box with nothing but prayer and rubber bands, I finished my 2016 goal of fifty shoe boxes. I don't plan on stopping here as God has blessed me with countless resources to make many more boxes. I want to say that this was truly a great feeling to reach fifty shoe boxes so early in the year and I look forward to what the rest of the year will bring to the table. For my fifty box stash, I have at the moment:

Girl 2-4: 7

Boy 2-4: 10

Boy 5-9: 3

Girl 10-14: 6

Boy 10-14: 24

     This has been a great experience and I hope you all are having just a great a time as I am as you pack up your shoe boxes all year round. God Bless!

Happy Packing!

OCC DEAL FIND: Free Coloring Books and Stickers

Hello Packers!

     This is your friend, Sweet Tea, here and I want you all to know about a great website that promotes healthy eating...mainly watermelon and they have them available for free! Again, I must recommend going to Clip With Purpose as they have such great deals all around the United States and they are willing to answer any of your questions. Anyway, here is the link for the Watermelon site: http://www.watermelon.org/Freebies

This is my box that I got just this morning. My mother picked it up and thought it was a set of textbooks but it was actually my wonderful coloring book order! To think, I was telling my mother about my coloring book order just a few hours ago and then they arrive at my doorstep.

So this is one of the two coloring books I ordered. This one is obviously targeted toward kids to stop eating junk food and that is OK as long as the inside of the coloring book is mostly coloring pages and not activity. (I know that seems silly but most of the countries these go to are countries that aren't strongest in English so crossword puzzles and word scrambles might not be the best for children overseas.) I ended up with 55 Lazee coloring books.

This is the second one and I just think this is so adorable. It is, again, directed toward healthy eating choices and there is nothing but coloring pages, no overly English-directed activities. I ended up with 55 of these coloring books.

I didn't know about these stickers but I think they'll be nice to add a few to the shoe boxes for the stickers, an easy staple for shoe boxes. I ordered 150 of the J-Slice stickers on the left and 50 of the red stickers on the right.

     I hope you guys all check out the site and order some free coloring books and stickers because they are a lot thicker than they look and have a great amount of multi-age coloring pages. 

Happy Packing!

OCC DEAL FIND: Target Clearance Pencils 3/3

Hello Packers!

     As my 3 hour break between my morning classes and my afternoon classes would have, I spent my time at Noodles Company and then Target to find a deal that I wasn't planning on finding. Something that we should all keep in mind when we are going into Target are the inner parts of the aisles where their glorious clearance items are available for the OCC Deal finders like ourselves. 

     In their clearance section of the stationery section, I found these awesome pen packs for only 27 cents each! I did the math and each of these pens comes out to about 3 cents each! Compared to the 16 pencil pack for 1 dollar which makes the pencils 6 cents each. I was as giddy as a school girl at this discovery.

     I don't know if there is truly any difference between the two pencils but these were the two types that they had available. I've never had any difference between pencil brands so I guess that is just up for discussion. 

     Although they had so many packs of pencils that I wish I could have stowed away in my basket, I could only afford to purchase 30 packs. The purchase came out to about $8.40 and with what I spent I discovered that at the dollar tree for the largest amount of pencils in a box which is 16 pencils, I would have only gotten 128 pencils, however for the deal I found, I made a purchase of 240 pencils! It is a great difference from the regular purchase from the dollar tree. 

     Happy Packing!

OCC DEAL FIND: Pens on Sale at Office Max/Depot

Hello Packers!

     Well, the days have been dwindling down to March and April is just a few weeks away. Before the meaning of Easter fills our hearts once more and gives us that extra boost of love for the world that guides us to possibly filling more boxes for those beautiful children overseas, we are left to find more wonderful deals that are prior to Easter. One of those deals that I discovered from Clip With Purpose (Check her website out and make her posts priority on Facebook: You'll get a lot of good deal suggestions) that Office Max/Depot has the Office Depot brand pens on sale after their "Back to School" sales from earlier this year. Let me show you just what type of deals I was able to find.

     So, not all stores are the same. Some have them on sale for 10 cents and some have them on sale for 14 cents but mine had them on sale for 5 cents each! Strictly the black pens but yes, I was able to find these packs for 5 cents each. Unfortunately, not all the employees at Office Depot are all that kind and accepting of those going around in sweat pants but thankfully there was an employee in the pens aisle and helped me over to the area of the discounted pens. I bought every pack they had available. (My stock of pens has been limited as the pens over here in California almost never go on sale.)

     Just to show how great of a deal this is, here is my receipt. I bought 119 packs of pens and only spent $6. Originally these pens are $1.59!!!!! Isn't that just disgusting? One pack of 10 pens brings the pens to be about 16 cents each! But with the pack for 5 cents each pen comes to just 1/2 a cent!!! Isn't that amazing?! Truly everyone, go off to Office Depot and ask them if they have the pens on sale.

     Considering that I had little to any boxes to hold the pens, I had to use old Birthday bags to hold all the pens and my sweet little brother helped cut off all the tops of the pen packages to put the pens away. I've noticed that with some packers and this is solely based on opinion, but they will put the entire  pack of pens in the containers and wait until packing time to unload. I just think that takes up a lot of time during packing time, but again, that is just my opinion. (That's my dog Molly by the way, she was supervising the entire time)

     My brother and I calculated it out and we have exactly 1190 pens. I put about 5 pens in each box and I've calculated it out that I would be able to fill 238 boxes with just the pens I bought from Office Depot. I wish I could have been able to find all of my shoe box gift items at such great deals but oh well, I'll take what I can get.

So, no matter what, I would recommend going to any Office Depot/Office Max and asking them if they have the pens on sale. It's a really good deal and you never know, you might be able to find the greatest of deals if you just check.

Happy Packing!

9 for 99 Cents Finds 2/19/16

Hello Packers!

     One of my favorite deals is finding the clearance section or holiday section at 99 cent stores on sale for a price that makes your head turn. The 9 for 99 cents deal that goes about at the 99 cent stores is one of my favorites. You find things that should obviously be there, like webkins figurines and floss picks that no one is going to use/buy but still, they push to find some way to make little to any profit off their products. Some things, however, make you wonder just why no one has bought the items or why you are the only one to be stashing them into your shopping cart because you think a stampede of people is going to crash your finding as soon as you find it. My mother happened to have that sense when she was shopping and found a great amount of things for my boxes as have I. Here they are:

This was definitely an exciting find for my mother as she went about her Valentine's Day shopping run. Most 99 cents stores have a clearance section now where "EVERYTHING MUST GO". This section can range from hair ties, stamps to clothing if you're lucky. My mother went to one off of Pleasant Grove and squealed in joy as she found these Webkins stuffed dogs for only 11 cents each! She grabbed my brother as they pulled the dogs off the shelves and placed them in her cart. She did mention that everyone was looking at her like she was a little off her rocker but isn't that the greatest feeling ever when you know you're doing this for the good of others? 

My mother also found some great deals on stacking cups from Sesame Street and I must admit, Sesame Street cups/sippy cups/bibs and pretty much all their baby supplies is the best thing that could have ever come into the 99 cent stores/Dollar Trees. So, each set comes with about 4 cups and they will be going into our 2-4 year old boxes. Next are two color in wood planes and those will be good in any 10-14 year old box so that is an exciting find. Then there are the five lunch bags that my mother found in the same section. I made sure to write down who these wonderful bags came from because for such a great find, she deserves to be mentioned in our notes to the kids. 

Last, but surely not least, is my glorious find of more Lakers notebook + Pen sets that also went into the LA Dodgers notebooks as well. By the way, didn't I say that I wanted to make some sports shoe boxes? These are going to look pretty awesome in those boxes don't you think? Then in the top left, we have a notebook and a pen/notepad set for CARS. After I bought this great find, I couldn't help but wonder if this would make a good themed box or not. Then, of course, my shoe box packing mind got reeling and there is without a doubt going to be a CARS themed shoe box in my boxes this year, it will just take a while until I find out what type of stuff I'm going to include.

So, with all that being shown, I just want to send a reminder that it doesn't matter what store you buy it from or how much it actually cost, what matters is that those kids came to mind when you found those items. Seriously, don't compare yourself to other packers: the main object of this organization is the kids and God's grace; it isn't a popularity contest among packers.

Happy Packing!