Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Packing Party

If there's one thing I love more than anything else, it's probably doing service projects like this. Since my girls aren't always as enthusiastic as I am (especially around Christmastime, when there are a huge number of service options available for kids their age), it's especially fun when I can plan a service event with a big group of people so at least I'm not working alone.

Probably since this was right on the heels of several other service projects, my girls weren't all that excited to participate. Since we volunteer so often now, I don't make them help when we go. They help when they want, and hang-out when they don't, and either way is ok with me.

Packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child is something we've been doing as a family since the girls were babies. We'd buy 6 plastic tubs and each person would fill their own. Then we'd drive down to the local collection site and pray for each one before walking it inside and handing it off. Last year, for some reason, we missed packing shoeboxes entirely, so I was even more excited to do this packing party this year.

Our shoebox packing pictures from 2008

 

This one was organized for our American Heritage Girls troop, and I was glad to see the big turnout. I made a sign-up sheet and had it available at the last several meetings, asking families to bring 10-20 of a specific item (toothbrushes, combs, soap, pencils, etc), along with anything else they'd like to bring for the shoeboxes. I had quite a collection at my house of stuffed animals and small toys, as well as some clothing and shoes from the show's donated items, so that provided something fun for the kids to put in the boxes along with the practical items.

I wasn't sure how the evening was going to go, but I knew that I really wanted to get across to the girls what they were doing and why it was so important, so I showed them this video:

A Boy's Life Changed

We talked about how each box represented a child, a life, that they could make a lasting impression on forever. Not just the items in the box, but the knowledge that someone loved them, cared about them, and they were special.

After some last minute instructions, we took some time to pray for the kids we were packing for, and then I gave them some quiet time to think about who they were packing for and what they should put in the box for them.

And then, the packing began. Not in a frenzy as I had expected, but deliberately and thoughtfully. They slowly sifted through the items on the tables, looking for just the right things to put in their boxes.

A few of them gathered items from the table and then took them off to a corner to pack them in their box. A couple had to get very creative to fit all of the goodies in.

Most girls spent the entire time packing one special box, but a few went back to pack a second one. When they were done packing their boxes, we had given them instructions to head to the back table to pick up a letter, photo, and envelope to place inside. We had the letter Samaritan's Purse provides online, with places to fill in your favorite color, food, and why you love Jesus in the blanks. Many girls took the time to write little notes to the children before placing the letter inside. I had also made an abbreviated letter for the littler ones who weren't strong readers, or the kids who wanted simpler fill-ins. The photo was one I had taken at the last meeting of all of the girls together. I was hoping they'd take the time to circle themselves so the child who receives the shoebox can see the face of the child who packed it for them. The envelope was one that was addressed here to my house. I'm hoping we may hear back from a couple of the kids, so our girls can hear directly from the children who received the boxes.

After they put the papers inside, it was time to head up front and pray for their box. Our troop Shepherd volunteered to stay there and pray with the girls if they wanted, but many chose to pray over their boxes alone. It was such a sweet time to see them really think about that child and pray that they would know the love of Christ.

No one was counting or watching the boxes pile up. Everyone was thinking only about the box they were packing, which was such a wonderful thing. We were all surprised when we stacked them up at the end of the night and found that we had packed 52 boxes.

I'm so proud of these girls, and I hope we'll all continue thinking about and praying for the children who will be receiving these boxes soon.

(Actual Date: November 19)

A Day At The Circus

It's no secret that I love entertainment: movies, TV, stand-up comedy, concerts, theater, and of course, the circus, among others. Every couple of years I splurge and buy some tickets to the circus. Even though the theme is different, the acts don't change much, so skipping years in between shows keeps it fresh and interesting. And as young as the girls are, doing something we did 2 or 3 years ago is just like doing it for the first time, so they had no idea what to expect.

The tickets were pretty cheap, so we went ahead and parked in the expensive lot and walked all the way to the other end of the lot where the animal meet-and-greet was happening. We were there a good 20 minutes before the animal pre-show was supposed to close, so we got in line to see it. Unfortunately, the not-so-nice lady at the front of the line refused to honor our printed online voucher and told us we'd have to go to the ticket booth and redeem them for tickets before she'd let us in. Here is a picture for reference.

The blue circle is where I parked. The orange spiral is where the animal pre-show was. And the purple 'X' is where the box office is located. Grr..

I warned the girls that we might not make it to the box office and back before they closed the pre-show, but they wanted to try for it anyway. So we practically speed-walked the whole way there and back and entered the pre-show with just a few minutes left to look around.

Needless to say, my girls were thrilled to see the animals up close - and some of them were really close.

 a pretty cool amber-colored tiger

 the tigers were about 6 feet from us

This horse looked exactly like the Bengal tigers for a minute, but it was spotted. It was one of the most unusual-looking horses I've ever seen.

After we had looked around outside for a few minutes, we headed inside for the indoor pre-show. They let everyone come down onto the floor and meet all the clowns and performers. You can also watch some small acts in performance rings, learn to juggle, or try on your very own clown nose. A decided it was a good time to collect autographs in the program we bought just before we came inside. It was a little like "Where's Waldo" as we looked through the book and tried to find the matching clowns in the crowds of people. We got SO close to getting all of the clowns' autographs. I think we were only missing one or two by the time the show was about to start.

the first clown she found

Towards the end of our autograph-gathering, we found a girl clown with blue hair. We tried to ask her for her autograph but she walked away in a big rush mumbling something we couldn't understand. It seemed a little rude at first, but less than two minutes later we spotted her again.... hanging from the ceiling. Totally forgiven. We did track her down as soon as she was done, though, and got her autograph.

We made our way up to our seats once the pre-show had finished. We were way, way up on the upper deck, but we could see everything just fine. Or maybe I'm just so used to seeing shows and sporting events from that height that I don't know any better. At any rate, we all enjoyed the show tremendously. It had a transportation theme, which they exploited heavily.

"Traffic cone" man on stilts

leaping horses

leaping tigers

poodles in buckets

 women being shot out of cannons

standing elephants

and the tallest stilts I've ever seen, by far... I mean seriously, take another look at this guy compared to the people around him

He had to duck to get out the door!

Don't tell anyone, but I brought you some snippets of the show so you can see some of the acts.

This guy had serious guts. There were a ton of tigers in there with him.

This tiger sat on the sidelines during the entire show and didn't do any of the tricks. We wondered about her until we found out that apparently she speaks Spanish, and only likes to dance...

These guys were having way too much fun at their construction site

I'm not sure why I quit taking pictures halfway through the show. I swear I nearly had a heart attack near the end when the guys ran and jumped on the spinning circles. I thought for sure they were going to fall and die. But I did make sure to get a photo of one of my very favorite things there - the ringleader's outfit! I swear I would buy this for Jessey in a heartbeat if I knew where to get one. I loved the whole ensemble, but the jacket was just awesome.

Actual Date: August 21

The Adventure that is Outrageous Outgrowns

On Memorial Day weekend in 2005, we sat inside Parkside Hall near the Convention Center wondering what was going to happen next. Would there be a hundred people lined up outside, wrapping around the city block, of anxious customers who couldn't wait to get inside? Would there be absolutely no one? 

I had purchased an existing business on a whim for $7000. I had a vision of a huge event someday, one that would fill the convention center and be bursting at the seams with customers. And so, I decided to call it "The Bay Area's BIGGEST Resale Event For Kids". Was it the biggest resale event? I had no idea. I really didn't know much at all about the resale world other than the fact that I had shopped at this event when my son was a toddler (who was a 10-year old in 2005), and then sold and shopped at the event again for the girls in recent years. I also knew that I had managed to "grow" the event from 19 sellers the previous fall to 50 at this event. I'd also managed to find a location, which apparently had proved to be the death of many consignment sales before. And I also managed to join forces with the most dynamic, hard-working team in existence - my family. In the beginning the entire show was a family effort. Every single task from preparation to setup, to cash register and packing was done by me, Mike, my mom or dad, my sister, my aunts, my in-laws, and even my grandma. It was actually pretty fun spending all that time together, although I'm not sure they all found it quite as endearing as I did. They've all stuck with me, though, and in some way each of them has continued to help make the show the success it is today. And somewhere in there I managed to convince my mom to become my business partner, and working with her has been the most amazing experience by far. She fills in every space where I'm lacking, and together we make such a great team. Along the way, I've learned so much from her and I'm extremely thankful for the excuse the show has given me to spend so much time with her.

In those days, despite the dreams, I had no idea how big this thing would become. Back then our supply list of items to bring to the show included "something to do" for the down-times between customers. Today, I'm lucky if I remember to snap a picture or make note of the final layout before the whole thing is finished and packed up. In a sense, it's kind of like planning your wedding over and over again. You make all the plans for every aspect of every moment, agonize over tiny details, get everything set and then adjust them again, pour tons of money into making it the best ever, and then you blink and it's over. And you're left with this faint memory that something cool happened and you liked it, even though you can't really remember all that much about it.

For many years we did everything we could think of to get the word out. Everything, that is, except to spend actual real money. We handed out flyers at parks, put flyers on windshields, drove signs into the ground and attached them to street poles. We sought out online calendars, called day-cares and schools, and even put out press kits, trying to entice the media to cover our event. And through it all, the show started growing, and just kept growing and growing and growing. Pretty soon we had 100, and then 200, and then 300 sellers at our event. The workload became unbearable and we hired staff to help us carry the load, literally and figuratively. We hired friends, family, sellers and their husbands, and even a few guys who were down on their luck. And suddenly giving money away became almost as much of a joy as seeing the business grow and hearing how much people appreciated coming to shop there.

But then something happened. It seemed like it happened suddenly, though I suppose it was actually happening all along and I just didn't notice. The show had grown too big. Granted, the show had been growing all along. In the beginning we used 1/2 of one side of the Hall. Later we used the full 1/2, only to become disillusioned with the Convention Center staff, which would land us ultimately at the Fairgrounds. We started in a small building, moved to a bigger one, and slowly began occupying more and more of the space inside it. But now the show had become a stressful challenge just to fit all of the items in the building, and the line to pay on the first days was spiraling out of control, hitting nearly 2-hours at its peak. I honestly couldn't think of any way to fix these problems. We'd gone vertical, we'd sped up our checkout process, we'd used every inch of space we could, but our previous growth in sales had completely halted and was now slowly starting to slip downward.

And then my mom, in all her brilliance, suggested moving to a bigger building - the biggest building they have at the Fairgrounds. And Mike suggested using barcode scanners at the registers, to scan tags live instead of removing them. And although it felt like a huge weight had been lifted, these propositions were extremely scary to me. Moving to a bigger building was going to cost considerably more money, and we were already slipping financially. Scanning barcodes at the registers meant that an infinite amount of things could potentially go wrong (including the thought that we may find ourselves at the end of the show with no record of what sold and no way to pay any of our sellers - terrifying!). But after some serious deliberation, I decided that there was no way I could go on providing bad service to the customers at an event with my name on it. So either we made the changes, or we quit.

This most recent show that ended a week ago was our second in this new giant building and we're still trying to figure out how best to use the space. The financial numbers are very slowly on the rise again, though, which made me confident enough to sign contracts for two more events next year. And the barcode system is amazing and not only cut the line time by more than half, but saves me weeks of work after the event. Of course, there's always kinks to work out and adjustments to be made (like the truck days - I'm working on it, Dad!), but that's the best part of this business and why I've loved it so much all along. It's like a never-ending round of process improvement and streamlining - a business that I get to tweak and adjust and change whenever and wherever I think it's needed. It's been the ultimate learning experience for me, and it's been a ridiculous amount of fun.

So what have my kids learned from Outrageous Outgrowns?

- customer service, as they see me deal with unruly or unhappy customers

- marketing, as they watch us find new ways to get the word out

- event coordination, as they sit in meetings and hear us talk about logistics, and demand and bargain for services with our event hosts

- integrity, as they see me run the business with honesty and do the best I can even when no one's looking

- budgeting, as they plan how many hours they want to work in order to buy the things they want

- hard work, in learning that I'm not paying them for hours when they're not really working hard

- thinking on your feet, which needs to happen way more often than I'd like it to, during the event

- diligence, when they see me keep pushing even though they know I'm tired

- business planning, when they go with me to check out the competition in the area and are able to tell me what I do better or what I should try to fix

- entrepreneurship, as they've grown up watching me make tough decisions and face my fears

- faith, when I say that the show is God's gift to us and I want to honor Him with all I do there

- family devotion, when they see everyone willing to help out for no other reason than the fact that they want me to succeed

- etiquette, when they learn how to speak and act around customers in a business place

- kindness/gentleness/patience, as we try to control our tempers and emotions after 9 days without much sleep

- generosity, as they see us give and give, and then give some more, for no reason at all

I'm not sure how much longer we'll keep running these events. We just finished our 9th year - 18 Outrageous Outgrowns shows, including several shows that almost didn't happen, and at least a couple of years where I'd been ready to call it quits. But thousands of people come through those doors each time we open them, and I hope we've made their lives a little happier, a little less stressful, a little more peaceful. I hope we've encouraged people, given them something to look forward to in dark times, and brightened their day with that one good deal or the check in their mailbox. If I was ever sad about selling or ending the business, it would be those opportunities that I would miss the most. I feel so fortunate to have been able to experience all of this. It has changed the way I think about everything.