For most of the past 25 years, Peggy Bendell of Porcupine has been coordinating Operation Christmas Child in the city for the religious relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse.
That involves filling shoeboxes with gifts – practical and otherwise – for kids in foreign countries who might not get any otherwise.
Bendell is quick to address some controversy over the apparent anti-LGBTQ views of Samaritan’s Purse.
“I may not agree with some of your opinions on politics and that, but if I have a gift for you, I’m still going to give you the gift,” she says by way of illustration. “We’re not against them because they’re a different religion. We’re still going to give them the gift.”
Bendell prefers to focus on the good work Samaritan’s Purse does.
“They’re in the Bahamas, helping there in the horrid situation there. Where there’s a disaster, they go. They don’t say ‘just a minute, will you sign on the dotted line that you’ll agree with my theology before I’ll help you dig out the swamp here?’”
She adds that Samaritan’s Purse was also on the ground in Ottawa… following massive flooding
Operation Christmas Child boxes are available at all four post offices in the city. The deadline to fill them and ship them to Central America and Africa is the week of November 18th.