Lee’s Pack ‘N Stack boxes serve children around the world
Source: samaritanspurse.org
Hundreds of freshmen students gathered in Walker Arena on Tuesday, Nov. 15 for Pack ‘N Stack, an annual event held on campus to fill shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child (OCC).
OCC is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief organization. The program started in the U.K. in 1990 and ships shoeboxes packed with toys, hygiene items and school supplies to over 100 countries in order to “demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to needy children around the world”, according to the Samaritan’s Purse website.
This is the 19th year that Lee students have packed shoeboxes on campus after the program started in 1998. The Pack ‘N Stack party began in 2007 and became a part of the freshman student curriculum.
Even though first-year students are required to participate in the event, Director of Student Development Jill Welborn encourages others to pack boxes.
“It’s not just a freshman thing,” Welborn said. “We want to invite the rest of campus clubs and organizations to pack and bring their own boxes themselves and really make it a campus wide effort.”
Welborn had a unique experience in January when she went on a distribution trip to the Dominican Republic. She said the experience made the program more real to her since she saw the faces of the children receiving the gift-filled shoeboxes.
“For the majority of people, it is just a box and never a face,” Welborn said. “[The trip] was incredible. It just puts life to all the pictures.”
Lee also has deeper ties with OCC than most may think.
Sophomore Rayman Lewis, a nursing and biology major from Portland, Jamaica, received his first box when he was just four years old in kindergarten.
He continued to receive several boxes during his childhood, one of which contained a book about Jesus Christ that he convinced his mother to read to him and his siblings.
“We would go to her room and she would read to us,” Lewis said. “If it wasn’t for those boxes we received, I would have never gotten the chance to experience sitting down or my mom reading that story for me before I go to bed.”
Lewis participated in Pack ‘N Stack for the first time in 2015, and had no idea what he was doing until he recognized the boxes he saw in Walker Arena. Since he used to receive the gifts, he focuses on helping others decide what to place in the boxes.
“I used to receive these boxes so I know what these kids want,” Lewis said. “I never ever in my life thought that I would be packing these boxes. It is so surreal, so unbelievable,” Lewis said.
He also feels that his perception on the program has changed since taking part in Pack ‘N Stack.
“Now looking back at it, I feel much more grateful now than I was back then receiving those boxes because now I’m looking at it from [a new] perspective,” Lewis said. “I think this is something I wanna be a part of and be dedicated to.”
Through the Pack ‘N Stack event and OCC in general, Lewis wants people to understand the impact that the boxes have on those that receive them.
“I would want them to know it is indeed a life-changing thing,” he said. “It creates bond also within the family and it creates bond within schools because there you’ll find that everybody at school at that time is so happy and then right away you build a friendship with a person.”
Even though the majority of Lee students will not have the chance to see the children open their boxes around Christmas, Welborn sees the event as a service with a lesson for students.
“We’re not serving people face-to-face, but we’re still serving people,” Welborn said. “I think it teaches Lee students the importance of being in the background and how impactful that can be. We have so much to be thankful for that no matter what situation you’re coming from, if you’re here at Lee, you have something to give.”
OCC’s National Collection Week is Nov. 14-21. Additional information about how to pack a shoebox, where they are sent and OCC’s mission can be found on the Samaritan’s Purse website.
