Hello friends!

As you may or may not know we have been volunteering for Operation Christmas Child for the last few years. It is a wonderful organization that provides orphan children in some of the poorest countries in the world with a shoebox full of goodies and essentials. The items in the boxes are just everyday things we take for granted (like a washcloth, a bar of soap, a spiral notebook, a pen or pencil, flip-flops, deodorant or a simple toothbrush) to the child receiving that shoebox gift, it may be the first gift they ever receive. The children receiving the boxes are usually between the ages of two and fourteen years old. Some of these children have NEVER received a single gift in their life. One of the stories that really broke our hearts, was learning that some orphanages cannot afford toothbrushes for each child in their care; so every child in that orphanage has to share one toothbrush. One toothbrush could be shared between 10 children. Just think about sharing your toothbrush for a moment :-(. While working, all volunteers make sure to add a donated toothbrush to each box being shipped.

We always run out of toothbrushes with thousands of boxes left to fill. I cannot explain the feeling of dread we feel every time we have to seal a box without a toothbrush inside. As much as volunteering brings you joy, it also gives you that feeling of needing to do more. We thought we could do better if only we had a little help from our friends. We decided to host a drive just to collect toothbrushes. Last year our goal was to collect over 2,000 toothbrushes. We gathered 450 and the organizers at the Hollywood facility were elated to receive them. We did however, run short again. Here is your chance to bring extreme joy to another person and build some quality karma for yourself before the holidays :-)! WE NEED TOOTHBRUSHES, the more the better. They don’t need to be brand name toothbrushes, we just need toothbrushes and lots of them. The more the better. There are toothbrushes in 6-packs for just a dollar or two available at stores near your home. It would also be wonderful to collect toothbrush caps and/or travel tubes to make breaking up a pack more sanitary. Our personal goal for this year is to collect 2,015 toothbrushes by Friday, November 13th. You can help us by collecting at your office, at school, at church, recreation groups, doesn’t matter. Once you have your collection ready we will gladly pick them up from your location or you can contact us to make delivery arrangements. Please let us know if you have any questions or have ideas for collecting more toothbrushes. With your help, we can beat last year’s record of 450 toothbrushes. Thank you in advance and we hope to hear from you soon.