Boxing Day for the Pet es
Hockey players, homeschooled children pack shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child effort
Brian Miller and his wife Esther delivered gifts to children under police escort in gang-infested areas of El Salvador with Operation Christmas Child in June.
It was the Peterborough Petes trainer’s second time travelling with Samaritan’s Purse, who run the O CC program, to deliver shoeboxes full of toys, hygiene products and school supplies to impoverished children. Last year, he and Esther travelled to Senegal.
For several years Miller has organized a collection of shoeboxes from Petes fans. On Friday, Petes players joined local homeschooled children at Home Depot for an OCC packing party to prepare boxes to be shipped to a distribution centre.
Both trips were eye-opening adventures for Miller. El Salvador’ s major cities had more modern amenities than Senegal but there was plenty of poverty in rural areas. The country is still recovering from civil war and gangs have become a major problem.
“They gave us a stat at one point that on average one male between the age of 15 and 24 was dying every hour of the day,” Miller said. “On average, 24 males are dying every day. They told us, if you pay attention as you look around, you’ll see a lot more females than you will males.”
It’s led to many young single mothers raising children in poverty.
“We were giving shoe boxes to kids who who children of gang members,” he said. “There were three days we had a police escort with us while we were doing things because we were out in the rural areas. I never felt unsafe but Samaritan’s Purse wants to make sure you are safe so they take those extra measures if they feel they need to.”
It also gave the police a chance to reach out to the children as part of a campaign to steer them away from gangs.
“They’re trying to build bridges. If we’re giving a shoebox to a gang member’ s child, that child may hate the police because they’ ve arrested dad and taken dad away.”
They travelled to remote villages located on the side of volcanos where schools were located amongst the trees, Miller said, almost like visiting a conservation area.
The commonality between their two trips, Miller said, was there action of the children.
“The kids are so excited to have visitors from another country. We went to one school where they’d constructed a Canada flag as best they could out of paper and had songs prepared for us,” he said. “They wanted to welcome us and were excited for us to come and to have play time with them.”
He played soccer with children in a small clearing amongst the trees.
Samaritan’ s Purse is also working on clean water initiatives. Miller said he’ d like togo back to help with one of those projects.
He said the shoebox campaign is a goodwill gesture that often breaks the ground for Samaritan’s Purse to do other community building projects. They work with local organizations trying to do the same things.
“It supports the local people who are there every day,” said Miller. “It doesn’t just stop at a shoebox. A shoebox builds trust in so many ways. Samaritan’s Purse Disaster Relief gives credit to the shoebox program for creating a level of trust.”
Anyone who picked up shoe boxes they haven’t yet returned have to dos oby Sunday for them to be sent out on time, said Miller.