By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Rebecca Woodland isn't sure how many shoeboxes she'll collect by Sunday, but she has two 40-foot Matson containers ready, just in case.

The project has grown faster than Woodland could have imagined five years ago when she and a group of friends put together 80 shoeboxes filled with toys, school supplies, clothes and toiletries to send to needy children around the world for Christmas. Last year, school groups, scout packs, church groups and businesses on O'ahu put together almost 3,900 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, a project through the organization Samaritan's Purse. One Matson container wasn't enough.

Job Esera, 20, and Benton Faamausili, 23, both of Kalihi, load boxes filled with gifts into a truck for Operation Christmas Child at Nu'uanu Congregational Church. Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

It all started when Woodland's mother, who lives in Canada, mentioned the shoebox project.

"She said, 'What? You've never heard of it? Well, you should.' So she sent me some newspaper articles and I made a phone call and checked the Web site and thought, I can do this."

Two years later, Woodland wasn't sure she could do it alone. The second year, there were 800 shoeboxes to send off to the organization's collection house in California. Woodland e-mailed Samaritan's Purse asking for help in finding a local coordinator. Just so happened, another Hawai'i woman, Aprill Wilson, e-mailed the organization that very same day asking how she could get involved. Wilson and Woodland met and joined forces. "We have different strengths and different areas of influences, so it works well," says Woodland. "We both work full-time jobs and have a million other things going on in our lives but this project is what makes everything else make sense."

Along with the filled shoe boxes that come from school kids, clubs and churches, Woodland has received donations of T-shirts, brand new toys, hundreds of toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste from local dentists and empty shoe boxes from PayLess Shoe Source.

A group of homeless people from Ala Moana park came to Central Union church to help assemble the donated items into the boxes. Says Woodland: "I really needed help putting it together. It wasn't something I could have done myself.

"These people put together the most beautiful shoe boxes," Woodland says. "They put together 58 in all, and each of these had a note inside from the person who made it. They were the nicest shoeboxes I've ever seen. I think that's because these are people who understand what need is."

The afternoon went so well that the group asked to come back a second day.

"One thing that really touched my heart was that one by one, each of them came up to me and thanked me for providing the opportunity to share because they don't get to share that often. They're usually on the receiving end of everything and that can be pretty dehumanizing after a while. I just came away feeling so honored and blessed having been in their presence. Here were these people who have very little giving to people who have far less."

Samaritan's Purse distributed 6.4 million shoeboxes last year to kids in 100 countries. Along with the shoe box gifts, children are given Christian gospel booklets in their own language. Last year, boxes from Hawai'i ended up in places like Russia, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Serbia and Nicaragua.

There's still time to participate. Two drop off sites for filled shoe boxes will be open through Sunday. There are specific items that should and shouldn't be put in the boxes, but you're encouraged to personalize the gift as much as you want. School kids sometimes include their school photo. Some people write Christmas cards to put in the box. Woodland likes to include a Hawai'i postcard with her name and address on it. "Everybody loves a postcard from Hawai'i" she says. Lots of times, the kids who get the shoe boxes write back to say thank you. Says Woodland, "There's power in a shoebox!"

Reach Lee Cataluna at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.