Hope Sent to Children across the Globe during Christmas

Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes

by Samaritan's Purse

National Collection Week will be November 16-22, 2026


Since 1993, over 209 million boys and girls in more than 170 countries and territories have experienced God’s love through the power of simple shoebox gifts from Operation Christmas Child. Samaritan’s Purse works with local churches and ministry partners to deliver the gifts and share the life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ.


CrossRoads collected over 4,800 shoeboxes in 2025


Operation Christmas Child delivers great joy and the Good News of Jesus Christ to children in need around the world through gift-filled shoeboxes. Each box packed full of quality toys, school supplies, and personal care items becomes a tangible expression of God's immense love for the child. For many, it is their first gift ever! Delivered by our local church partners, shoebox gifts provide an opportunity to present the Gospel to boys and girls in a clear, child-friendly way.


CrossRoads Church at Westfield began as a church plant in 1998 and began our first mission opportunity that year by collecting Operation Christmas Child boxes in the parking lot of the Westfield, IN Target store.


Learn more about Operation Christmas Child at their website here: Operation Christmas Child

Fill A Shoebox

Start with an average-size cardboard or plastic shoebox. If you want to wrap it, cover the box and lid separately. You can use your own shoeboxes or order Operation Christmas Child colorful preprinted ones, available in both cardboard and plastic. These sturdy options hold up well and can be lasting gifts in themselves for children to store cherished items.


CrossRoads Church also has printed cardboard Operation Christmas Child boxes that you may pick up at CrossRoads during National Collection Week in November 2026.


For next steps with your shoebox click here....Shoeboxes

The History of Samaritan's Purse

In the summer of 1993, Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham received a call from a man in England asking if he’d be willing to fill shoeboxes with gifts for children in war-torn Bosnia. Franklin agreed, but figured Christmas was months away. He forgot about the promise until he received a call back around Thanksgiving asking about the gifts. Franklin asked his friend, the late Pastor Ross Rhoads of Calvary Church of Charlotte to see if he could help with the need.

 

A Sunday shortly afterward, Pastor Rhoads demonstrated for his congregation how to fill a shoebox with simple gifts and encouraged them to include a letter to the child as well. Within weeks, the church had 11,000 shoeboxes lining their hallways. Due to their generosity and additional gifts from Canada, Samaritan’s Purse sent 28,000 shoebox gifts to children in the Balkans that Christmas. 


As they say, the rest is history. Each year millions of shoeboxes are packed, transported, and delivered around the globe for kids at Christmas.


Through these gifts, we communicated to children and their families what the angel said to the shepherds about Jesus’ birth: “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” 

(Luke 2:10, ESV).

Drop Off Shoeboxes at CrossRoads Church

When you have filled your shoebox, you can drop off your completed shoeboxes at CrossRoads Church at Westfield, 19201 Grassy Branch Road, Westfield, IN, in November 2026


There you will find a person to greet you and to receive your shoebox[es]. If you have followed the steps above your box will already have a label on it designating the gender and age of the child for which the box was created.


Please remember that liquids, meltable candy, and war toys should not be included in the boxes.


If you have questions, need a label, desire additional boxes, or want to pay the $10 per box transportation fee, we will glad to help you once you arrive at CrossRoads during National Collection Week in November 2026

Fill a Shoebox Online

Send the Gospel to the Ends of the Earth Without Leaving Home


Shoebox gifts built online go to the ends of the earth to children in some of the hardest-to-reach places—whether deep jungles, city slums, steep mountainsides, or one of 1,000 remote Pacific islands. Many of these areas are resistant to the Gospel, for cultural or religious reasons, and are home to numerous unreached people groups, some of whom have never heard the Name of Jesus Christ.


Here is how to build a shoebox online....ONLINE

Help Process Shoeboxes

CrossRoads Church at Westfield serves as an Operation Christmas Child Relay Station, meaning we are one step in getting the boxes to children by Christmas. All of the individual shoeboxes have to be received, registered, and then packed into large cardboard cartons so they can be readied for delivery to Charlotte, NC where they are processed for delivery.


WE INVITE YOU to process and pack boxes during National Collection Week, in November 2026 at CrossRoads Church at Westfield. 

Choose to serve for two hours or more, one day or many and whether you want to be a host to receive shoeboxes from those dropping them off or to help pack shoeboxes into larger cardboard boxes.  You can sign up in October 2026


Other questions? Contact us by emailing us at ForOurNeighborInfo@gmail.com or click here....EMAIL.