Members of Alpha Lambda Delta honor society wrapped and filled shoeboxes Sunday night in the Union Cotillion ballroom for underprivileged children in foreign countries.
The honor society posted fliers in the Union asking University students to participate in Operation Christmas Child. Despite the advertisements, University students did not attend the event.
Natalie Wall, an animal science sophomore and Alpha Delta Lambda president, said she participated in Operation Christmas Child at her high school.
She decided to introduce the project to her honor society because students at her high school enjoyed it so much. College students just might enjoy it more, Wall said.
Operation Christmas Child is a program of Samaritan’s Purse – a non-denominational, evangelical Christian organization.
According to the Samaritan’s Purse Web site, since 1970 Samaritan’s Purse has provided aid to victims of war, disease, famine, poverty and natural disasters.
Operation Christmas Child began in 1993, the Web site said. In 2002 the organization provided 6 million shoebox gifts for children in 95 different countries.
The Web site says Samaritan’s Purse has collected 24 million shoebox gifts since it began.
Rachel Veron, a business sophomore and Alpha Lambda Delta treasurer, said the Operation Christmas Child is a new idea for the honor society.
“This is a new experience for [us]. It’s fabulous,” Veron said.
Even though the fliers posted asked students to bring gift wrap and shoeboxes to Sunday’s event, Alpha Lambda Delta provided them for students, Wall said. The club also provided candy and gifts to fill the shoeboxes.
“We asked them to bring them if they had them,” she said. They did not want lack of materials to stop students from participating.
The honor society recognizes that college students do not have a lot of money, so they provided the materials for them, Walls said. Students still can give even if they cannot bring their own materials.
Elva Bourgeois, a Human Ecology faculty adviser, said even if a lot of students did not attend the event they are still making a difference.
“If it even gets one more group interested, we have served a purpose,” she said.
Bourgeois has been a volunteer with the honor society for 20 years.
She said she thought it was a shame people only think of doing charities such as Samaritan’s Purse during the holidays. Alpha Lambda Delta also hosted a Halloween card event.
The members of Alpha Lambda Delta spent two hours wrapping and filling 20 shoeboxes. Veron also stamped stationery paper with images of frogs.
Wall said the boxes will be dropped off at Zora Baptist Church.
“We take it for granted,” Veron said as Bourgeois and Wall sat on the floor wrapping shoeboxes with Winnie the Pooh, Scooby-Doo and Mickey Mouse gift wrap. “Paper for us is so plentiful, but a piece of white paper not written on or blank is not that common for a [needy] child.”
Underprivileged children are used to writing on food wrappers and other used paper, she said.
The members of Alpha Lambda Delta provided other gifts such as stickers, hair combs, play-doh, crayons, pencils, balloons and writing pads to fill the shoeboxes.
Veron said taking a trip to Honduras to visit a child showed her the importance of doing a charity like Operation Christmas Child.
“If you can’t get to a mission or you can’t visit the truly poor, what better way to make a connection,” Veron said.
Bourgeois said the mission work of a friend inspired her to participate in Operation Christmas Child.
She said her friend sent her e-mails telling her of his experience living and teaching in an African jungle.
Bourgeois said he told her about children who would take scraps of paper out of garbage cans just to have something they could use for writing.
She said her friend would give gifts to the children.
“That’s when I thought ‘Wow, I could be doing that,'” Bourgeois said. “I can’t go to Africa, but I can help pack a box that will go.”