St. Paul's Lodge

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD
For a vast number of years Charles ‘Chuck’ Chadwick, a member of St. Paul’s Lodge No. 5459 and his wife Joan have played a pivotal role in the local organisation of Operation Christmas Child, (OCC), a project run by the Samaritan’s Purse. Ever since Chuck got involved with OCC, nine years ago, St. Paul’s Lodge have given generously and with the donation this year of £150 to OCC this puts their total well to over £1000. Chuck and Joan raise money in lots of other ways, for example, earlier this year they cleared out their loft and did a car boot sale and raised £100 which was spent on sweets. This year they have managed to fill 570 shoeboxes which will be part of the consignment going to Eastern European Countries and Africa

With the 570 shoeboxes ready for shipment are left to right; Paul Birkinhead, driver for Walker’s Crisps who provided the
lorry to collect the boxes, Ann Gerrard and Wendy Scott from OCC Speke, Joan Chadwick and Chuck Chadwick.

The idea behind OCC came from Dave Cooke, a father of four living Wrexham, North Wales, after seeing the horror of abandoned children in Romanian orphanages on TV news and asks friends to help fill a truck with gift-filled shoeboxes and drive it to Romania. The response from local people was overwhelming with £60,000 being raised. Operation Christmas Child was established as a charity. In 1995 OCC merged with another established charity, Samaritan’s Purse, and became part of a very large organisation which has Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, as its head. Christian singer, Nia, was made honorary Vice President of OCC in 1997. Ever since OCC was founded many celebrity’s and influential people have supported and endorsed the work of OCC, such as the actor Mr. T, Neighbour’s Allessi twins, Alan Titchmarsh, Alan Shearer, Tony and Cherie Blair, Donny Osmond, Linda Robson, Clair Sweeney, and Ant and Dec to name but a few. In the early years OCC managed to send 60000 shoeboxes to needy children, this figure has grown each year and since 1998 over a million shoeboxes have been sent each year. Since the launch of OCC in 1990, over 81 million shoeboxes have been given out to children in great need around the world. These shoeboxes have gone to places like Bulgaria, Serbia, Armenia, Bosnia, Kenya, Rwanda, Russia, Romania, Hungary, Albania, Croatia, Poland, Ukraine, Honduras, Mozambique, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Ethiopia and Niger were they are greatly appreciated.
On a more personal note, Joan said that both she and Chuck thoroughly enjoy looking for bargains throughout the year and get a great deal of satisfaction from the challenge. Each box has items ranging from clothing, toiletries, pens, coloured pencils, crayons, writing pad, colouring paper, sweets and a toy. The boxes are sorted into age groups; two to four, five to nine and ten to fourteen and are marked for a boy or girl. “Part of the fun is organising the packing so that the box lid fits, other members of St. Paul’s Lodge help out and we manage to make it an enjoyable event at home, a good time is had by all” said Joan. The average cost for a fully stocked shoebox is £10, with another £2.50 required for processing each shoebox.