Volunteers gathered at Courtland Festival Park in Appomattox last Saturday to help pack gift boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Image: Susanne Wood/Contributed

For the second straight year, people from the Appomattox area gathered at the Courtland Festival Park pavilion for a “packing party” hosted by Operation Christmas Child for the purpose of impacting children throughout the world.

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization headquartered in Boone, North Carolina. The project gathers various gifts — donated by church or business groups and individuals — for impoverished children, packs the gifts in shoebox-style boxes and ships them to specified locations.

Around a dozen adults and four to six children came together Saturday in Appomattox and packed 100 shoeboxes full of items such as toys, hygiene necessities and school supplies.

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