I set a goal almost a year ago that I would try to fill 24 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes this year. Mission Complete. I dropped the boxes off at church on Friday before we left town for homecoming.
I didn't do as great of a job buying items for my boxes throughout the year as I'd hoped. But that's where I am going to learn from my "mistakes" and do better next year. One thing that's not a mistake: 24 children will feel the love of Jesus and hear the gospel message because of those 24 boxes.
At least I did do a good job of setting aside the money for shipping ($7 per box) throughout the year. That will kill you if you don't accumulate it gradually. I just put a $20 bill in an envelope about once a month. And, because of experience in prior years, I decided to get a money order for my box total ($168) instead of depositing the money and writing a check. Why? Because, in years past, my check sat in one of the shoeboxes for a couple of weeks before it ever got deposited. I didn't want to forget I'd spent $168 and then later have it disappear from my account!
Twenty-four turned out to be a perfect number. A lot of the items that I bought in bulk were sold in quantities of 8 or 12...which meant I'd have the exact right number if I bought either two or three packs of whatever the item was.
I bought my boxes early in the year and a few other items as I came across them or as I knew they would be on sale (i.e. crayons for 25 cents a box at back-to-school time). I need to do a better job next year of hitting up the sales in the days and week following holidays: Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, Back-to-School, Halloween (usually where I get some of my biggest scores), Thanksgiving (which means THIS year) and Christmas (also this year). Shoot...I might even get some deals after New Year's Eve and some of the other "minor" holidays.
I also might take a closer look at my Oriental Trading Company purchases before making them next year. I bought several bulk items from there, because they are super inexpensive. The only problem is, they're also very cheap (low-quality) and tiny.
To the best of my recollection, here's what went into my boxes this year (12 boy boxes and 12 girl boxes).
- Coloring books (Oriental Trading)
- 24-packs of crayons (Target - on sale for 25 cents a piece during back-to-school)
- Washcloths (Target)
- Plastic whistles (Target - party favors aisle)
- Novelty sunglasses (Target - party favors aisle)
- Mini pinball games (Oriental Trading)
- Plastic mugs (Oriental Trading)
- Mini Play-Doh (Target - bags of 20 on sale after Halloween)
- Mini paddleball games (Oriental Trading)
- Spinning tops (Oriental Trading)
- Matchbox cars (Dollar General or Big Lots - boys' boxes only)
- Suckers & gum (Target - on sale after Halloween)
- Hair bows and clips (Big Lots - girls' boxes only)
- Combs (Big Lots - girls' boxes only)
- Nail polish (Dollar General - girls' boxes only)
- Stuffed animals (We donated about a dozen from Rylan's basket of untouched stuffed animals, and I bought the other dozen at Dollar General)
- Bars of soap (Costco)
- Pencils (Dollar General)
- Toothbrushes (Donated by Jason's dentist)
- Toothpaste (Donated by Trey's dentist)
- Notepads (Big Lots)
- Mini spiral notebooks (Dollar General)
- Tennis balls (Target)
- Sidewalk chalk (Target, I think. I bought two big boxes and divided the chalk into Ziplock bags)
- Mini yo-yos (Oriental Trading)
- Mini beach balls (Oriental Trading)
- Finger skateboards (Big Lots - boys' boxes only)
- Kaleidoscopes (Dollar General)
I think I'm going to set the same goal for myself for next year, but I will strive to do a better job of buying more earlier in the year instead of going on a buying frenzy the last few weeks before boxes came due. If I change it up at all, it might be to throw in a couple of boxes for the two age groups I didn't touch. All of my boxes were the 5-9 age group, which I'm assuming is probably the most popular. Maybe next year I'll pick up a couple of 2-4 year-old boxes or a box or two for the 10-14 age group.
2 comments:
The Waddells are soooo doing this in 2012! You did great! :)
*LIKE*
:) Rhonda, I've always had a special place in my heart for OCC, but it's so expensive to try to do multiple boxes if you wait until OCC "season." This was my way of challenging myself to do more!
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