ONE Spirit -- An American Indian Service Organization

Focusing on the Lakota Sioux of Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Reservations in South Dakota

The ONE Spirit Gift Box Program

The ONE Spirit Gift Box Program

You are invited to join us in the ONE Spirit Gift Box program and help give Christmas gifts to American Indian children. Contact Marcia McMorrow (freemar@localnet.com ) to help!

What is the Gift Box Program?

The objective of the Gift Box Program is to send Christmas gift boxes to children on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the present-day home of the Lakota Sioux Indians in southwest South Dakota, near the Nebraska border. For many children in most years, this will be the ONLY Christmas gift they get!! We are taught to have compassionate hearts and to give of ourselves for those in need and those who suffer. And the American Indians on the Pine Ridge, and other reservations, are among the poorest and most underprivileged people in our big country.

The History of the Gift Box Program

Rex Hartson and Rieky Keeris started this program several years ago as a ministry, the Christ Church American Indian Ministry (CCAIM), within our local church, Christ Episcopal Church, Blacksburg, VA. We started by sending gifts to about 8-10 of the youngest Head Start children in Manderson, SD, and soon we had increased it to 15-20 children. For Christmas 2004 we sent gift boxes to 43 individual Head Start children.

However, there are several hundred children enrolled in Head Start classes across the entire Pine Ridge Reservation and many more who are eligible. It's a big step from 43 to several hundred, but in 2005 we took on the challenge to expand the Shoe Box Project to all the Head Start children on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Many people in Christ Church and the community helped by contributing gift items and/or money needed for shipping. Sandy Birch and several of our neighboring Lutheran churches also helped in a big way. In the end we had gathered 314 gift boxes and Rieky and I loaded them all into a U-Haul trailer, along with lots of food items, and drove them to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. What an adventure to drive that far through the Midwest in winter! But it was more than worth it. As the various Head Start teachers stepped forward, Rieky and Rex filled large packing boxes with gifts for their children. We had exactly enough gift boxes! Everyone who contributed can know that every single gift box made a difference.

Many people helped build that success story and now many more people are asking if they can help this coming year. So, the time has come to let this project grow from a local church activity to a nationwide collaboration. In order to grow we'll have to organize in a way that allows each person and group across the country to contribute directly to their fullest ability. So, we are introducing the ONE Spirit Gift Box Program and that is where you come in!

What does it take to work with the Gift Box Program?

It just takes a desire to help, and you can work with us as an individual or as a group. Of course, a group can be more fun working together, and can gather more gift boxes. There is no formal commitment and no fees; just you and us working together. You get to do your own gift box activity, but we will always be there to help and to answer questions. And we at ONE Spirit will coordinate the timing and the delivery of the gift boxes.

If you can't send gift boxes, please send a donation

If you want to support the Gift Box effort but don't want to send gift boxes, you can send a donation. A check for $25 will give a Christmas gift (a nice box of gifts and shipping) to one child on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Of course, larger checks will give Christmas gifts to more children.

Make out your check to ONE / ONE Spirit, write "Gift Box Program" in the memo line, and send it to:

ONE Spirit
P.O. Box 2595
Chesterfield, VA 23832

Or send a Paypal payment to OneSpirit@one1.org

The Gift Items

For each box you plan to send, buy about $15 worth of small gift items for a young boy or girl (or gift items that are suitable for either a boy or a girl). It can be fun for a group to participate in bulk gift item buying, filling several shopping carts.

We have had good luck shopping at stores like The Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Big Lots, and stores like K-Mart. If any of you know of a better place, or a source of donations for this project, please let us know (freemar@localnet.com). In addition to buying things for the gift boxes, some people have made items such as knitted hats, gloves, sox, even soft stuffed animals.

Please resist the temptation to spend more than about $15 per gift box. We know you want to make your package special for your child but it works better if they each have about the same amount of contents when the children open them together. Avoid bad feelings at a time when there should be only good feelings. Instead of making your package twice as good, it is better to send twice as many packages.

We have found that for about $15 you can get a lot of really cool stuff, including books and other educational items (especially those that help them learn reading or arithmetic), crayons, pens, pencils, water colors, coloring books, toys (nothing that requires batteries, no toy guns), candy, games, personal hygiene items like toothbrushes and toothpaste, warm hats, gloves, scarves, sox, soft stuffed animal (for either boy or girl), and other winter comfort items. Here is a picture of some sample gifts that we bought recently from our local Dollar tree:

The Boxes

Gift boxes must be inspected at receiving end, on the reservation, for inappropriate or potentially harmful gifts. Therefore, the boxes cannot be wrapped in the usual way. They must be easily opened for inspection; if the lid cannot be removed, the box will have to be unwrapped (to be inspected) before it can be given to a child.

You can use donated cardboard shoe boxes as gift boxes or any other cardboard box about 12" x 12" x 12" (this is just an approximate suggestion and size and shape can vary depending on the gifts you are sending). Most people have such boxes lying around and you shouldn't have to buy one. Empty shoe boxes are good, but limit it to the “standard” shoe-box size, not the oversized boxes for boots, etc. However, the cardboard boxes are much more difficult to wrap (because lid must be wrapped separately due to the inspection requirement stated above).

As a result, we have found it practical to buy a large number of shoe-box-size plastic boxes and use those. For example, the Sterilite brand 6-Quart storage box is available (e.g., the Dollar tree, Wal-Mart) for about $1. Using the plastic boxes gives a uniformity that helps avoid a feeling by children that someone else got a bigger box. It is much easier to wrap; just line it with tissue paper. As a bonus, the box is a gift itself; it can be used to store toys, etc. throughout the year.

The Procedure

This procedure can be used by individuals or by group wishing to participate. Groups have more options and, generally, more efficiency than individuals, so try to get together with others in your church or community and form a group who can work together to send multiple gift boxes.

1. Let us know that you plan to participate by sending email to Marcia McMorrow at: freemar@localnet.com
2. Do the shopping
• Decide on how many gift boxes you want to send and obtain that many boxes. As explained in the previous section, we recommend buying the plastic shoebox-sized storage boxes for about $1.
• Buy all the gift items you need, following the guidelines stated above.
• Buy enough colored tissue paper to line all the plastic boxes. Again, this can be bought inexpensively from places like the Dollar Tree.
• Buy a supply of large rubber bands (at least two per box).
3. Preparing the boxes
• If are using plastic boxes, line each box with colored tissue.
• Stuff the gifts into the box. To do this as a group activity:
  • Find a large room, like a conference room, with several large work tables. Put all the boxes and gift items out on tables. It is usually best to put all the stuffed animals in one place, all the books in another, all the candy in another, etc.
  • Gather everyone in the group and have each person grab a box, add the tissue, and go around the table to adding an assortment of the gift items.
• If you are using cardboard boxes, do not wrap the boxes as single integral packages; you must wrap the lids separately.
• Attach a label (e.g., Christmas gift label) indicating the age range and sex (boy, girl) of the intended recipient. Make the age range as broad as appropriate to give the most flexibility for finding a recipient (remember that the Head Start children are ages 3 - 5. If the gifts are not particularly for a boy or a girl, write "either boy or girl", again giving the most flexibility.
• Secure the lids to the boxes with a couple of large rubber bands.
• You can also decorate gift boxes with crayons, paints, stickers, collages, and natural substances such as pieces of pine cones, yarn, or anything that comes to mind. This hand decoration also upholds our ideal that handmade things have great value.Remember: Just don't wrap the boxes to the point where they are sealed, since they have to be reopened at the receiving end.
4. Packing for shipping
• Pack all the gift boxes into large shipping boxes.
• Add bubble wrap or something to pad the gift boxes if there is extra space.
• If you have a large number of gift boxes, we suggest you use the largest shipping boxes you can find. Larger boxes (up to, but not large than, 130 inches of girth plus length and up to 70 lbs. in weight) are much more economical to ship.
• Shipping method should be determined by what is most convenient and/or least expensive for you. UPS and FedEx do make deliveries to the reservation. The USPS also delivers and they have some (small) flat rate boxes that each cost a flat $8.10 to mail to anywhere in the U.S., regardless of weight. If your box is not heavy, you might find UPS or FedEx would send it for less.
5. Shipping
• Ship by December 1
• Contact Marcia McMorrow for shipping address information: email to freemar@localnet.com or call 207/674-3258
  
• We suggest you get a confirmation and tracking number, to be sure it gets delivered on time.
  
6. Finally, please inform Marcia McMorrow (freemar@localnet.com) of the number of boxes you sent. It is very important to the Head Start program to know how much is being spent (for matching of federal funds).
   

How-To-Do-It Presentation for Your Group

Here is a how-to-do-it PowerPoint presentation that you can download and show to your group to get them interested and show them how to do it all:

How-to-do-it Power Presentation

Other Things You Can Do To Promote The Gift Box Program

Here are some things you can do to expand the gift box program and help us send gifts to every child on Pine Ridge Reservation:

• Recruit other local groups to work with you. Make a presentation (we can give you a PowerPoint file presentation that you can adapt). Explain the need and convince others to contribute gift boxes or to form gift box groups. Convey an idea of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation; show pictures of people on reservation (we have some to share). As an example, in 2005 several Lutheran churches in the Blacksburg, VA area joined up with Christ Episcopal Church and greatly expanded the number of gift boxes.
• Advertise. For the whole congregation at our church, we set up a display in a commons area where people could bring gifts, boxes, and cash donations for shipping costs.
• Have a youth party at your church or other organization. At Christ Episcopal Church we had an All Saints' Day party (OK, it was kind of a Halloween party, one day later) for our youth (wide age range). We called it a Party With a Purpose. In addition to the traditional costume contest, games, and prizes, we all did some gift box stuffing and wrapping. We bought large numbers of gifts in advance and set them all out on large tables. The kids were also asked to bring a set of gifts, an empty gift box, inexpensive gift-wrapping paper, and $5 to pay for shipping. Parents assisted the youngest children as everyone got a box and took one of each item from the table to fill the box. We also had people assigned at the tables to help ensure even distribution of the gifts. We kept doing this until all the boxes were filled, wrapped, and stacked under a large Christmas tree in our "great hall" area, where they were on display for everyone in our church to see for the next few weeks, before they went off to the reservation.
  

Request More Information

Contact:
Marcia McMorrow, Gift Box Program manager
freemar@localnet.com