Community Alliance Church: Butler County’s hub for Operation Christmas Child
CENTER TWP — With Christmas only two months away, churches across Butler County and the world are gathering items into shoeboxes to be given out in December.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, which aims to “demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to children in need around the world.” This is done through distributing toys, which come from churches around the world.
Eight churches in Butler and Armstrong counties are part of the effort, all collecting shoeboxes filled with supplies to distribute through Operation Christmas Child.
Rege Judy is the coordinator of Operation Christmas Child at Community Alliance Church, which is the main collection site for Butler County. He explained that the church has red and green shoeboxes that people can pick up to load with supplies like pencils, crayons, dolls, balloons, toothbrushes, clothing and more, before bringing them back to the church to ship overseas.
Judy said the shoeboxes are given to children ages 2 to 14 in countries like Mexico, Namibia, Suriname and the Philippines, where toys — and even personal possessions — are sparse.
“A vast majority of times, this is the only Christmas gift a kid gets,” Judy said. “They share everything, washcloths, soap, toothpaste — so, when they get their own, that’s like gold to them.”
The eight churches in Butler County get the word out to their congregations that they are in search of donations to pack the shoeboxes with, and their communities respond in turn.
The local churches involved in Operation Christmas Child are Community Alliance, Zion Methodist Community Church in Buffalo Township, Apollo Free Methodist Church in Apollo, Advance Community Church in Mars, Walkchalk Salem Baptist Church in Kittanning, Friendship Presbyterian Church in Slippery Rock, Chicora Alliance Church in Chicora and Three Rivers Free Will Baptist Church in Cranberry Township.
According to Judy, it’s not just churches that assist with the project.
“They can be Scout troops, other churches in the area — and they bring their shoeboxes to this collection spot,” Judy said. “They are put into cartons, and from their cartons they come to us.”
Operation Christmas Child’s goal for 2025 is to provide 12.6 million shoebox gifts globally, 11.1 million from the United States alone, according to a fact sheet from Samaritan’s Purse. It takes a lot of people to pull off a successful operation — “there are 19,000 year-round volunteers, and they get out of that pool, that’s where they get a lot of volunteers for their disaster relief.”
“There’s 190,000 short-term volunteers that serve at the shoebox collection locations each national collection week,” Judy said.
Once collection week hits — Nov. 17 through 24 this year — the trailers arrive at Community Alliance Church and the packing begins. Another huge endeavor for the church, according to Judy.
“We have tractor trailers in the back lot during national collection week. We load these trailers, and the trailers go to processing centers in Baltimore (Md.) or Boone, N.C.,” Judy said.
The Butler and Armstrong county collection sites have gathered more than 132,000 shoeboxes since 2014.
Although Judy has not traveled overseas to help deliver the shoeboxes, he said the volunteers who do help go to some remote areas of the world.
“These go to countries, mostly Third World countries like African countries or in South America, they’ll go even out to Asian Philippine islands, like remote islands. They take them by boat and up into the hills,” Judy said. “Sometimes kids in orphanages, they’ll go to orphanages.”
Aside from the gifts packed into the boxes by individuals, Samaritan’s Purse also places a Christian book into each box, which Judy said is translated into whatever language is used where a box is going to. Additionally, Samaritan’s Purse provides a 12-lesson discipleship program to each area where boxes are distributed.
Judy said the whole project works to spread a Christian message.
“The idea is they want these kids to know that God loves them,” Judy said.
Judy said people can show that they care for children in underserved nations by participating in Operation Christmas Child and packing a box or boxes for those children. The church will have boxes on hand until collection week, and Judy said he and the church staff can provide people with a list of items recommended to be packed in the boxes so donations can be made in confidence.
“If people want them … come to the church,” Judy said.
For more information on Operation Christmas Child, contact Community Alliance Church at 724-282-0230. The church has boxes on hand and is located at 800 Mercer Road in Center Township.
