A volunteer for Operation Christmas Child, Sheri Wood, has received the Presidential Volunteer Service Award.
Since 1993, the project has delivered 46 million Christmas gifts to children around the world. Driven by a huge number of volunteers, gifts are delivered through local churches in some of the poorest countries.
Wood has volunteered an average of 16 hours a week in Minnesota's twin cities. More than 20,000 shoeboxes full of gifts for children in far away countries have come through her home over the last eight years.
"They mean that children will hear about Jesus, that they'll hear the Good News of the Gospel and their lives might be changed," she said.
Randy Riddle, U.S. director of the project, praised her work.
"If Operation Christmas Child had a Sheri Wood in every community across this country," he told Family News in Focus, "we'd be an unstoppable force."
Hygiene products, school supplies and small toys make up the bulk of what people pack in the boxes, but Wood said it's the personal letters and pictures they send along that really touch the kids.
"Really, that's the most valued thing that a child loves when they open a shoebox," she said. "They love to see who loved them enough to send them a gift."
And while it's too late to share a gift for this Christmas, Wood said Operation Christmas Child needs volunteers all year long.
"They can really enrich their lives," she said, "and see God's power by working through this project."
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Visit the Operation Christmas Child Web site.
(NOTE: Referral to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
