SANTA ANA : Church Fills the Needs of Young War Victims

Normally, people save old shoe boxes to store special things, such as photographs or baseball cards.

But at Calvary Chapel in Santa Ana, hundreds of churchgoers on Tuesday brought shoe boxes filled with Christmas gifts--from coloring books to toy cars to dolls to basic necessities such as soap and toothpaste.

The shoe box buildup is part of an ongoing program dubbed “Operation Christmas Child,” a collection drive to help some of the suffering children living in war-torn Bosnia and Rwanda.

“The real question is, how do we help children during the Christmas time who have seen their parents murdered before their eyes?” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian group based in Boone, N.C., that is coordinating the collection effort. “The answer is, give children toys and they can find refuge in them and block out their horrors.”

Graham said he hopes to collect as many as 20,000 shoe boxes in Southern California and then fly them to Rwanda and Bosnia in time for Christmas. Last year, 28,000 toy-filled shoe boxes were collected by Samaritan’s Purse, which for 20 years has sent medical teams to countries racked by war and famine.

Tammy Schaefer, 33, of Huntington Beach, was one of several hundred Calvary Chapel members who contributed to the cause by placing a gift-wrapped shoe box on the table at the front door of the chapel.

The task was simple and took very little time: She found an old shoe box in the back of her closet and stuffed it with a coloring book, a toy car, toothpaste and a toothbrush. And now she says she’s glad she has given.

“Looking at the kids over there (in Bosnia and Rwanda) and all they’ve gone through . . . I can’t imagine growing up like that,” Schaefer said. “This was my way of helping, even if it’s just a little.”

Graham encourages givers to leave a photograph inside the box, so the child knows what the gift giver looks like, or maybe even a home address.

“Hundreds of children wrote back last year,” he said.

To contribute, drop off shoe boxes at the church office, 3800 S. Fairview St. in Santa Ana. The deadline is Sunday.