SOUTH POINT — Pam Stilton, of South Point, popped in the door of First Southern Baptist Church Monday afternoon with a wrapped shoebox containing toys for a little girl, aged 5-9.

“There’s a stuffed animal in it and some Walt Disney’s Cinderella items,” she said. “I put some hard candy in it.”

Come Christmastime, a little girl somewhere in the world will open that box and discover a woman she never knew cared about her.

This year, First Southern Baptist Church will serve as a local drop-off point for Operation Christmas Child, sponsored by the Samaritan’s Purse.

Operation Christmas Child provides Christmas gifts to millions of children around the world each year. Along with the shoebox of small toys and games and toiletry items is a booklet, written in the child’s own language, that tells the true story of Christmas.

Children in more than 150 countries will get a shoe box with gifts, sent with love from Americans they may never know.

People from other churches who are taking part in OCC may bring their loads of shoeboxes to the church off U.S. 52. From there, the boxes will be shipped to Jackson and eventually to Boone, North Carolina and then on to places around the globe in time for the holidays.

“God has a place for each of these boxes,” Daphne Duncan said as she arranged boxes on a hand cart Monday afternoon. Duncan is the church’s OCC coordinator. The South Point congregation itself has collected 100 boxes from its own members.

For those who have yet to assemble a box but want to do so, there is a need for shoeboxes of gifts for boys aged 10-14.

The shoeboxes can be dropped off noon-4:30p.m.

today, 4-7 p.m. Wednesday, 12-4:30 Thursday and Friday and 12:30-3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

For more information, call the church at 377- 4549.