Shoe Box Packing Team

Yesterday, a shipping container showed up at Seminole Community Church in Sanford, FL.  Only a 20 ft container was ordered, but due to an error on the part of the shipper, we received a 40 ft container… an early Christmas gift.  This meant we had more than enough room for everything we hoped to ship to Haiti, plus extra room for other donated items we didn’t expect to send just yet.

We received about 600 Christmas Shoe Boxes for the children in Haiti, many of them designated for specific children by their Child Sponsors.  These Shoe Boxes, filled with toys, dolls, balls, clothes, shoes, candy, toothbrushes, soap and more, began arriving over the past few weeks from churches in Ohio, Virginia, New Jersey and Florida.  15 women sorted and

packed the Shoe Boxes into larger boxes, and when the count came in under our goal of 700, they were on a mission.  By the time the container arrived on Saturday morning, another 125 Shoe Boxes had been packed, providing one for every boy and girl in our schools in Haiti.

We had 35 volunteers on hand to help load the container.  Bags of donated clothes and shoes were sorted, boxed and packed.  80 boxes of food from Feeding Children Everywhere were loaded, enough to feed 50 children a meal a day for over a year.  Furnishings for our Children’s Home were purchased and packed.  And when the packing was all done, we surrounded the container and prayed for a speedy, safe delivery to Open Door.

A special thanks to all who gave or served to help send this special delivery to Open Door this Christmas!

Doug Holliday

President/Open Door Haiti-USA

Almost 18 months ago, we began construction on Open Door Childrens’ Home.  The first 25 children who will call Open Door’s orphanage their home have been identified.  The funds have been raised to build the wall around the orphanage compound, a last minute requirement from the Haitian government.  The wall is nearly complete.  We are hoping to move the children into their new home the first week of December.  Many friends of Open Door have asked about sponsoring an orphan.  The monthly sponsorship commitment for the orphanage will be $50.  The children from the orphanage will also attend Open Door School, which is a separate monthly sponsorship commitment of $25.  Very soon we will have an orphanage sponsorship page on our site where you can identify a child you would like to sponsor.  I’m so excited to see the children in their new home, a place of hope, love and joy!

For the children,

Doug Holliday, US President/ODH