The old saying goes that big things come in small packages.

For 8 million children last year, it could be said that the old saying was certainly the truth.

That’s how many children received specially wrapped and filled shoeboxes through Operation Christmas Child, “the world’s largest Christmas project.”

The Niles Seventh-day Adventist School has served as a drop point for area donators for the last 14 years.

“We are the collection site for the northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan areas,” Esther Jones, volunteer area coordinator, said Wednesday. “We have 15 centers that are coming to us now.”

Through Operation Christmas Child, Niles residents are helping send shoebox gifts this year to more than 8 million children in 100 countries suffering from natural disaster, war, terrorism, disease, famine and poverty. From Niles, the shoebox gifts will be sorted and sent using whatever means necessary—sea containers, trucks, trains, airplanes, boats, camels, even dog sleds — to reach suffering children around the world.

Those centers, along with area churches, organizations, families and citizens, take time to fill up shoeboxes with school supplies, necessary personal items such as a bar of soap, small toys and stuffed animals.

Certain items are discouraged because they could damage the box in transit, such as chocolate, which could melt, or shampoos or liquids, which could spill.

Through collection centers like Niles Seventh-day Adventist School, thousands of shoeboxes are loaded into semi tractor-trailers and then shipped off to more than 100 countries around the world.

Thousands upon thousands of little packages with a really big message.

For the children who receive these neatly packed presents, it could be the only gift they get this holiday season, Jones said.

“Usually a child does not receive more than one (shoebox) in their lifetime,” she said, “because the need is so great. There are 1.2 billion children in the world under the age of 15 … and that is the goal of Operation Christmas Child — to reach that 1.2 billion before they’re 15.

“It may not take the child out of the garbage dump that they live in,” Jones said. “Or the ghetto. But it will change how they feel inside and it will open them up to the gospel, which is the greatest gift of all.”

And in some cases, one little shoebox could mean providing an education for children around the world as those school supplies inside “allow (children) to go to school,” Jones said.

The school will be collecting boxes Nov. 15-22. There will be several drop-off times for those who want to donate a box Operation Christmas Child also offers a way to track your box online to see just where it ends up.

“I look at it as an opportunity to be a missionary without using your passport,” Jones said. “You can touch the life of a child … and of course, many prayers are answered in the boxes.”

For more information, visit www.samaritanspurse.org.