Who's Counting?

My work packing Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes involves a lot of counting. Today is an exciting day because I met my crayon count. Since Toys R Us had an ad this week with Crayola crayons on sale at 4/$1.00 I was able to get WalMart to price match their ad. By God's grace WalMart had lots of crayons on the shelves so I only had to go to 2 stores to get the 1400 I wanted this week. This is a great answer to prayers prayed by my team and now we should have enough to put a bag of 8 crayons in each box we pack at our packing party on September 24th. Any extras we have donated will be used in case we pack more boxes than we anticipate and, guess what--this ALWAYS happens.

Last week I ordered 24,000 pens and they arrived at Grace Church on Thursday--the one day I was out of town. The staff at the church was great about unloading them from the truck and I'm excited because the quality of the pens is great. Now I only need about 5,000 more pens (yes, I AM counting).

The 1,000 pencils I got at Staples last week for a total of only $1.25 by using my teacher's card gets us half-way to the goal. I think we just need 15,000 more.

And God is filling up the Ark week by week. Last week's total was 550 and Hill Memorial United Methodist Church in Bradford, PA has a bunch that they collected at their VBS last week also. I'd say we only need about 3000 or 3500 more.

In the middle of all this counting, a friend whose daughter had brain surgery this week reminded me that God counts our tears. How amazing! My tears usually run like rivers, don't yours? Only the God of the universe could see and count each one. Every tear I cry alone is known to Him.

Every tear cried by a child in the world who is hungry or abandoned or lacking even what we consider basic necessities of life is seen and counted by our loving God. And because He loves us so much He gives us the opportunity to join Him in bringing hope and joy and turning many of the tears of those children into smiles. That's something that really makes life count.

Who's counthing? God is!

All For $1.31

I had a fun little sale shopping trip to Office Max this morning to get some school supplies for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. I'm convinced that God put us in this little pre-fab ranch style 'starter home' 37 years ago and kept us here so we'd be in the perfect location for bargain hunting for shoeboxes. I'm 2 miles or less from most of the major stores to get great bargains.

Thanks to a tip from Clip With Purpose, (a great blog you should really subscribe to in order to get the best deals for your shoeboxes) I printed some great online coupons for Office Max and you can print them, too by
clicking here.

Office Max Coupons

This morning I went to Office Max and using these coupons I got 6 packs of filler paper, 50 Office Max brand pens, 2 pencil sharpeners and 2 packs of pencil top erasers all for $1.31. I'm not sure if all stores have the penny erasers and sharpeners (limit of 2 per person). At our store in Erie they were on a display in the middle of the aisle by the display of filler paper (which was near the back of the store). These coupons are only good until tomorrow, July 30th, so you need to hurry.

There's something so exciting about getting things cheap--especially when you know how valuable they are to children in other countries who sometimes can't attend school for lack of simple supplies.

Hey, in most places you can't even get a cup of coffee for $1.31 anymore--just sayin'.

Paper Deals Get Better!

Yes, I admit it. I'm obsessed by collecting paper. But I'm not a hoarder (really). It's for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. I'm determined to be able to put at least 10 sheets of paper in each of the 15,000 shoeboxes we're praying God will allow us to pack at our community-wide packing party on September 24th at Grace Church.

So I'm very excited that the paper deals at Staples are even better this week. Staples ads vary by region, so if you're outside the Erie, PA area you may have different deals this week. You can go to Staples.com and put in your zip code to see your regional ad. But here's how things went for me today.

Before heading out to Staples, I made sure I had my Staples Rewards card. You can sign up for this online or in the store. If you're a teacher make sure you let them know because you can get 25 each of the special one-cent deals that are a limit of 2 for everyone else.

I also made sure I had 2 very special coupons. Here's a link to one that allows you to get 20% off on one single item at Staples this week.

Click here for coupon link


Then see if your store ad has a coupon that you can get for $5.00 off a $25.00 purchase. You can also get this online

click here for $5.00 coupon

Also, before going check to see what special deals your store has for one-cent each this week (if any). Here in Erie, PA we have the items pictured above. Packs of 100 index cards, packs of 2 Sharpie highlighters, and packs of 8 pencils. You have to have a minimum $5.00 purchase and there is a limit of 2 each unless you're a teacher and then you get 25 each.

Now here's how it worked for me today. I bought 25 of each of those above items for one cent each and I also bought a case of Staples copy paper (10 reams) for $35.99 plus tax.

THEN I used both the 20% off coupon on the box of paper AND the $5.00 off $25 purchase. This brought my grand total to $26.02.

BUT I'll then get $26.00 back in Staples Rewards for a future purchase. So, essentially, I got 25 packs of index cards, 25 packs of highlighters, 200 pencils, and 10 reams of paper for all of .02. Think of all those kids who will have school supplies to allow them to go to school for the price of a little planning and two pennies. (I'm planning to do this again since there's a limit of 2 of this deal this week)

But what if you don't have the money to invest in a case of paper or don't want to mess around with the Staples Rewards? You can still help for FREE. With no card needed, you can buy a ream of Staples multipurpose copy paper for $5.99 and also get 2 packs of index cards, 2 packs of pencils, and 2 highlighters all for 6 cents. Now you can also use that above coupon for 20% off on the paper. You will spend about $5.15 with the tax included.

NOW, when you get home you take a quick minute to go online and file to get a rebate of $5.49 which will be sent as a check in the mail. They're going to pay you to get these school supplies for Operation Christmas Child. And you can do a limit of 2 rebates so you'll get paid even more if you do it twice.

How about putting in your two cents' worth?

Paper Revisited

I know...I can't seem to get off the subject of paper. A week ago I was hoping for a miracle--to get 300 reams of paper in our storage container by today. I haven't actually looked in the storage container but I don't think there are 300 reams in there yet.

But we can still do this. I think 8 cases were purchased this week (that's 80 reams) plus a few more reams on top of that.

Staples is having even better deals this week on paper. If you buy a ream for $5.99 you can then complete the rebate form online (very easy) and get a check for $5.49 back making it only 50 cents (plus the tax). There is a limit of 2 per household on this deal. Also, with a $5.00 purchase from Sun. - Weds. you can get a pack of 8 pencils for 1 cent (limit 2) and a pack of index cards for 1 cent (limit 2). So you can make 2 separate trips to get your $5.99 ream of paper and get the 1 cent deals with each one.

The deal I talked about on cases last week is still in effect this week BUT this week there is also a coupon in the ad for $5.00 off a $25.00 purchase. So I'm planning to use that coupon to get the case of paper for $30.99 and then get the $26 in Staples Rewards (you do have to use a Staples Rewards card for this deal). Again, there's a limit of 2 cases with the rewards back on each.

So we only need about 110 people to each buy 2 reams of paper OR 22 people to each buy a case of paper OR 11 people to each buy two cases.

You get the idea...

15 People Is All It Will Take

I have a new challenge for this week. I just saw the Staples Ad for Erie that starts tomorrow, July 17,2011 and it has a great rebate deal on cases of copy paper. Click here to see the link for it. (this link takes you to the weekly ad and make sure you get the one for July 17th-23rd and then go to page 8-9)

I've been praying about how to get some inexpensive paper to put into our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes for the community-wide packing party we're hosting at Grace Church in Erie on September 24th. We had McCarty Printing promise us 200 memo pads but that leaves 14,800 boxes without paper. The 70-sheet spiral notebooks we used to put into every box up until last year are now 20 cents each at WalMart and it would cost $3000 to put one of those in every box, even if we could get WalMart to order them, which is not a sure thing.

Then I saw this deal for copy paper in the Staples ad and I did some quick calculations. If I could get just 15 people to each take advantage of the deal and buy 2 cases of paper (20 reams) each, then we'd have 300 reams--enough to put at least 10 sheets of paper in each box we pack.

Each person who agrees to do this will have to get a Staples Reward Card (only takes a few minutes to sign up in the store) and be able and willing to invest $72.00 plus tax to buy the two cases. After filing for the rebate online (quick and easy to do) they will later have $52.00 returned in Staples Reward Points that they can use later to buy printer cartridges or anything else they need at Staples.

This means each person's final investment is $20.00 for 20 reams of paper they can donate for our Operation Christmas Child packing party.

This sounds easy enough to me until I realize I don't have 15 friends in Erie I can talk into doing this for me and children around the world. I go to this big church but don't know 15 people I'd be able to ask to do this.

It's time for me to pray and see if this can happen. Wouldn't it be just amazing if God had 300 reams of copy paper in our storage container by July 24th.

15 people and a miracle--that's all it will take.

Blessed By A Bountiful Bevy of Beanies

Last week a woman called to say she wanted to donate "9 tubs" of "brand new Beanie Babies & Beanie Buddies (larger versions)" for our Operation Christmas Child packing party. Today I finally made arrangements to pick them up and went to her home to get them.

Sweet Mary had wrapped each of them in tissue paper and kept them lovingly stored in plastic tubs. I know she expected them to make her millions one day but I tried to tell her that her investment will reap rich rewards as they bring joy to children who may have never received a gift in their life.

We unwrapped each of them and counted them into bags--all except for the two she bought in Las Vegas and just had to keep. The grand total for those of you who've been making guesses on Facebook is ...... (drum roll)......

416

That's 416 more boxes we can pack at our Operation Christmas Child packing party on September 24th. That's 416 more children who will have a toy to hug and a chance to hear the message that God loves them. That's 416 answers to prayers.

Not a bad investment.

Crayon Update

By buying 160 tubes of toothpaste for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes with coupons last week I got enough gas points for us to fill our vehicles 4 times and the points have to be used by July 23rd. Now I know why.

This week I'm going to be doing a lot of driving to WalMart stores, I think. I'm trying to amass as many 24-packs of Crayola crayons as possible by having WalMart match the Toys R Us sale price of 4/$1.00. Today I drove from my house to Elm St. WalMart then to Harborcreek and then out to Edinboro and back to Peach St. I'm not sure how many miles that was, but it made good use of that gas since I was saving 38% on the crayons. I ended up today's run with 1090 boxes for a total of 1833 so far. I'm praying for at least 3000 this week out of the total 5000 boxes I need.

Unfortunately, these aren't in easily stackable cartons so I'm not sure how I'm going to store them in the container. I wish I had an unlimited supply of copy paper boxes for that. I need to figure out something tomorrow.

We had a conference call today for those who are having packing parties to put together large numbers of Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. I felt like I didn't have much to contribute because every year seems to bring new challenges and we need to do things in a different way. The past year's experience has some impact, of course, but still so much is new.

One of the big challenges is trying to figure out how to get more money for donating toward shipping these boxes. A suggestion was made of having each volunteer who comes to help pack boxes donate at least $7.00. It sounds great, but I wonder if it would keep the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts from coming.

Something else to pray about.