CASSOPOLIS — Local children are assembling operation Christmas child boxes to be filled at the Penn Friends Community Church from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17.  The youth make a game of who can assemble the most boxes as the runners pile them high in another room.

This is the fifth year that Penn Friends has been the collection agent for OCC in the Cass County area. In 2013, six area churches — Cass United Methodist,  Cass Presbyterian, Creekside Baptist of Dowagiac, Diamond Cove Missionary,  North Wayne Mennonite  and Penn Friends — collected 400 boxes, filling the shoe boxes with sanitation supplies, school supplies and a toy, which are then sent to the collection center in Minneapolis, where they are distributed to 104 of the neediest countries of the world.

By 2017, Cass Fellowship joined in the giving as the original churches bumped up their numbers and the totals rose to 997. Organizers’ goal for 2018 is 1,100 shoe boxes.

It is not the generosity of the churches alone, but of area businesses that extend their helping hands. Preferred Printing donates tablets annually, Huntington Bank of Niles is good about giving pens with logos, while Farm Bureau grifted mugs.

For more information, contact Deb Wiggins at (269) 462-9343.