ABC of OCC - G

G is for guns. A real no-no in OCC world....

Most people are aware that Operation Christmas Child started when Dave Cooke saw the plight of Romanian orphans in 1990 - (it is twenty years old this year). But very quickly after that first convoy OCC the charity started to take aid to other countries. In 1992, trucks of aid went to both Croatia and Serbia as the rumblings of a bloody conflict had begun. OCC was born at a time of great need and found itself delivering, not just to neglected children in Romania's orphanages, but also to children traumatised by war.
(photo right: by Phil Dawes, Hull Daily Mail, Bosnia 2003)

Here is a snippet from an early 1993 OCC newsletter:

"Two thousand children had been waiting for six hours in the cold. But that was the least of their worries in the madness of war. They’d been told that ‘packets’ (shoeboxes) were coming for their children and waiting was easy. The boxes had to be smuggled across the river in small boats as the bridge had been blown away. The joy and anticipation was tinged with an air of fear and panic in case a child missed out. The school yard where the children waited in Orsaje had witnessed the death of sixteen children from daily shelling. The team watched as the desperate refugee children received their boxes and ran to their parents shaking with sheer joy. Hardened soldiers put down their weapons and cried as they opened the gifts with their own children. Messages of love, new toys books and crayons appeared from nowhere. The same scenes were repeated right across the former Yugoslavia. Ivan Vacek, one of OCC’s partners said, “These kids have had nothing for so long. This is more important to them than even the food convoys. What a wonderful way to share the message of the first Christmas Child.”

Although that particular conflict is over, we do still deliver shoeboxes to children affected by war, so please, avoid anything to do with the military in the shoeboxes- even camouflage gear.