>>SOUTHERN INDIANA — Though Christmas is well over, the gift of giving is something that will stick with one Southern Indiana resident forever.

Andrea Roach, of Jeffersonville, recently traveled to Ecuador to help hand out shoeboxes collected as part of Operation Christmas Child. The program is run through Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization. It collects items in shoeboxes such as small toys, school supplies, personal gifts, candy and necessities it then distributes to countries throughout the world.

Roach, 38, who has been working as a volunteer for the organization for 13 years and is the area coordinator for 14 Southeastern Indiana counties, was chosen last month to see the boxes to their destination.

“Our staff here at Operation Christmas Child picks each volunteer that goes on this volunteer distribution trip,” said Charissa Clearman, spokeswoman for Operation Christmas Child, in an e-mail. “We pick year-round volunteers that have gone above and beyond just packing a shoe box.

“They have really put forth their time in promoting the project around their community and organizing collections.”

It was the first time Roach was part of the distribution of the shoeboxes and likely will be her last.

“It’s usually a one-time thing,” she said.

But given the chance, Roach said she would definitely go back, even though the volunteers pay their own way.

Clearman said the organization is not able to pay for the volunteers to go on the distribution trips, but it certainly did not dissuade Roach.

During the three-day journey, from Feb. 1-3, Roach was part of an 80-person convoy that headed to Ecuador to hand out the shoeboxes to needy children. Her group, which consisted of about 10 people, handed out between 7,500 to 10,000 shoeboxes during six separate distributions.

The areas the group visited also are likely one-time destinations, as Operation Christmas Child rotates the countries where it distributes the boxes.

“Our goal is to give every child affected by war-torn, poverty-stricken areas an opportunity to receive one shoebox,” Clearman said. “We usually do not repeat distributions at the same places — we continue to reach new communities every year.”

It can be up to four months after Christmas when the group arrives, but the delay didn’t seem to matter to the children and parents receiving the care packages. To be able to see the excitement from children and their joy in receiving the gifts was amazing, Roach said.

But it wasn’t the only emotion she experienced.

“It’s heartbreaking at the same time,” she said. “For most of [the children], it was the only gift they’ve ever received. It really is eye-opening to see how other people live.”

One of Roach’s six distributions in Ecuador occurred near a garbage dump where the children commonly searched for food and salvageable items.

Although it would seem like the excitement of receiving the boxes would reside with the children, it meant a great deal to the parents as well.

“Seeing the parents was life-changing for me,” Roach said.

A mother of a 7-year-old, Roach saw parents that were more excited about getting items they are unable to provide for their children than the children were about receiving the boxes. Being able to hand those boxes over to their children meant a great deal to them, Roach said.

The experience registered with Roach that little things — such as being able to drive to the store and get a box of crayons for her child — is something that is too often taken for granted.

“I really didn’t get it either ... until I saw it,” she said. “It was a life-changing experience.”

The trip to Ecuador and Roach’s experience there is something she said she will parlay into efforts to continue to grow the Operation Christmas Child program locally.

“The whole goal is to increase how many boxes were handed out,” she said.

The goal for next year — which will focus its efforts for collection the week before Thanksgiving and is designed for children to be able to collect and give to other children — is to top the 13,000 boxes in the 14-county, Southeastern Indiana area and about 111,000 state-wide collected for this year.

“What a gift it is for our children that are so absolutely blessed to give to [these] children,” Roach said.