Ohio East Area Team seeks volunteers for Operation Christmas Child in Holmes County
The Ohio East Area Team is recruiting Holmes County volunteers now, months before the holiday rush, to help process more shoebox gifts and reach more children.
The Ohio East Area Team is widening its call for help across Holmes County and four neighboring counties, building the volunteer base now so the region can handle Operation Christmas Child’s holiday workload later.
The recruitment reaches Holmes, Tuscarawas, Carroll, Harrison and Coshocton counties, and the jobs go well beyond packing boxes. Samaritan’s Purse says local volunteers serve year-round to recruit and train participants and coordinate the collection of shoebox gifts. The organization says it needs leaders, prayer warriors, people with logistics and administration skills, and volunteers who can communicate the project to churches and communities.
That mix shows how much of the effort happens behind the scenes. Someone with planning experience can help organize collection points and track supplies. Someone comfortable speaking to groups can help line up participation. Someone who wants to support the ministry quietly can work on the prayer side. Together, those roles keep the operation moving before any shoeboxes are shipped.
The timing matters. Samaritan’s Purse said Operation Christmas Child depends on thousands of volunteers to collect and process millions of shoebox gifts each year. The 2025 National Collection Week ran Nov. 17-24, and more than 4,700 drop-off locations were open nationwide, which is why organizers say volunteer recruiting has to begin well before the fall and holiday push. The work starts long before children receive the gifts.
Holmes County and its neighboring counties have already shown what a coordinated volunteer network can do. In 2020, residents in Carroll, Coshocton, Harrison, Holmes and Tuscarawas counties helped the Ohio East Area collect 37,250 shoebox gifts. The counties sit in the same broader eastern Ohio service region, a geographic fit that helps explain why the effort is organized across county lines rather than through one church or town.
For Holmes County, the latest recruiting push is less about a seasonal campaign than a standing volunteer infrastructure. More local hands now mean more capacity to recruit, train, organize and process the shoeboxes that move from county collections to children around the world.
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