Kathy Klatt
Special to the Gazette
This year Port Hardy Baptist Church participated in the program called Operation Christmas Child.
The program is run by Samaritan Purse, an organization that helps the needy all over the world and, starting in September, the organization prepares for their biggest program of the year.
Operation Christmas Child sends shoeboxes full of toys, personal items and school supplies to needy children all over the world.
This year the congregation of our church participated in this program and we set a goal to fill 60 boxes — we surpassed our goal by filling more than 100 boxes.
Each box cost about $30 to send — $7 of this goes to shipping.
So, we needed $1,800 dollars to reach our goal.
We did several fundraisers, including a hot dog sale at Overwaitea where we raised $600. We thank Overwaitea for donating the supplies.
Other businesses gave us discounts on the items we bought in their store.
The Bargain Store was very generous giving us the most discounts, so we would like to thank them.
We also had others that donated money to make a banner for our fundraising.
We would like to especially thank The Hobby Nook, Jim’s Hardy Sports and Overwaitea.
A big thanks to all those who donated and all the people from the community that helped us fill the boxes so they could be sent out by the deadline. Good job everyone!