Volunteers with a project in Orrington are already busy boxing up Christmas gifts.

They're hoping to put together about five thousand boxes this year, as part of an effort to help a lot of kids they've never even met.

"Last year we did about 47 hundred boxes we processed here, this year we're hoping to process about 5 thousand boxes," says Assistant Pastor James Lord at Calvary Chapel in Orrington.

He says they've already collected 500 boxes, and counting. They're taking donations all week, filling this truck with gifts for children in more than 150 countries.

"This is a high point of their whole year, as such. They give all the boxes out at once and the kids just go crazy. And they're not as impressed by the toys and the things our kids here are spoiled by, they're really just blessed to have received anything," Lord says.

It's called Operation Christmas Child, a national project for countries impacted by natural disaster, war, disease and poverty.

The boxes contain toys, supplies and things kids who don't have a lot can really use.

"They'll show us videos of them taking boxes by mules, backpack, boats, planes, whatever to children in countries where they don't really have anything," he says.

Pastors at local churches overseas make sure the gifts get to the children safely, and volunteers from home sometimes tag along.

"We've had one girl from here who actually got to go distribute boxes and was honored to do that. It was quite the experience for her. So they get a lot of volunteers, it's an all-volunteer thing. Nobody gets paid for this," Lord says.

Calvary Chapel processes all the donations from our part of the state. They'll be around all week.

"It's a good lesson for us to teach our kids to be selfless," Lord says.

The folks at Calvary Chapel at 154 River Road in Orrington will be taking donations there every day, until Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

For more information on the project or what they're looking for, you can call them at 991-9555.

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