Women pitch in with shoe-box gifts

County church women have found the best way to recycle shoe boxes: Pack them with toys and candies and send them off to children throughout the world.

This isn't a project they've undertaken on their own. It's a worldwide effort known as Operation Christmas Child that began in 1993 with the objective of bringing gifts to children in impoverished countries. It's an operation of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization. Last year the shoe boxes reached 7.6 million children in 95 countries, according to the agency's statistics.

Locally, the collections are under way at Chesapeake Christian Fellowship, 377...