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After Thanksgiving Shopping ~ Added Little to My Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Stockpile

My husband did a little after Thanksgiving Operation Christmas Child shoebox shopping for me Saturday morning. His first stop was Office Max for a some 1 cent batteries after MaxPerks rewards.  This enables us to get a lot of shoebox items.  The limit was two, but he needed some for personal use, so only one goes into my stockpile.  They are on the same special this week again, so he will be stopping in for two more for shoeboxes.
We read of children in war torn countries who were afraid of
the dark and how a flashlight brought them comfort.
Our shoe boxes always include a flashlight with extra batteries.


Dollar General had their last chance clearance items 50% off.  The prices were still pretty high but I had seen these little tablets so asked him to pick up four for me--they would be 25 cents each.  After he brought them home I noticed they
are actually post it notes.  My daughter Sarah came up with the idea to make stationery packets from her personal stash for the 10 to 14 year old girl boxes she did this year (see her blog post about it: Sending Smiles).  I told her we would keep our eyes open for clearanced tablets and stationery so she could make them again this year.

Sarah read of a child excited to receive envelopes and paper....
...they could now write to their sibling in another orphanage.

Each Saturday Sarah shares our additions to our stockpile.  You can see them all here:  Shoebox Stockpile Saturday ~ Adding to Our Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Stockpile.

Can you tell we choose many of our items because of Operation Christmas Child shoebox distribution stories? What do you have on your "must include" list? Did you get any great buys this past weekend?

6 comments:

Pam S said...

Yes, I can tell! I love it! Whenever, wherever I go, OCC is on my mind. Did not get any buys this past weekend, but, did get to tell others about OCC, and they were very interested!

On my "must include"list--prayers first, then loveys.

Cheryl @ Simply Shoeboxes said...

Pam, I want to get organized to have brochures with me whenever I get out of the house...which isn't too often. But I want to be able to share more, too. I'm with you on the must include list--I have both of those on mine, too.

Mary said...

I have found brochures to be overwhelming - so much to read, and can be confusing for a new person.
This year at our drop off locations we had a little booklet about a boy in the Philippines - it was a great booklet to hand people, to see the effect of 1 shoebox gift.

Or if you don't have that, I actually handed out the "church bulletin" inserts...they were clearer in their description of what OCC was all about.

Cheryl @ Simply Shoeboxes said...

I got one of those little booklets, Mary, when I dropped off fillers and boxes--I totally agree, something more simple would be better. The bulletin inserts would be great. Do you know if we can order those little booklets?

I also have a t-shirt from volunteering years ago at Boone--I have been thinking about making it into a totebag--it has a big OCC logo on it. I thought it would be a good conversation starter.

Kathy Schriefer said...

When I was at Office Max, they told me if I used my rewards to buy the batteries I would not get rewards in return? Maybe the associates didn't know what they were talking about.

Cheryl @ Simply Shoeboxes said...

Kathy, if you use your rewards you will get bonus rewards, but you will NOT get the 5% on the purchase--the part that adds up to $25 for every $500 spent--maxperks used negate this 5% back. I always use mine and have had no problem getting them on the new products. I keep an eye on my account online and be sure they post within the week of buying the item. Once in a while (even when I don't use rewards to buy them) I have had a problem...but I just call and they fix it.


             
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