Great job!! A successful packing party is when all boxes are fully packed with essentials and some fun items and people are having fun. Many ways to set up a packing party. I led a church packing party with 1,200 boxes. I set up one long table of what I considered essentials: school supplies, hygiene items, & a stuff animal. There were 6 smaller tables of each gender and age group people went to after the essential table to pick 3-4 items from. We closed down a smaller table, that is, gender and age group, when all the stuff allocated for that table ran out. We stopped the whole packing party when the essential items were gone. People had to go to one of two checkers who checked to make sure the boxes were full before they were given rubber bands to close their boxes. A friend of mine heads her church packing party. They did 2,500 boxes in 2022. They had 6 tables set up for each gender and age group only. Packing parties are so fun!!
That's so fun! Love all the info and all of y'all's success with y'alls packing parties. It really is so fun doing these packing parties with everybody and teaching new people about the shoebox! 🥰
Oh thank you so much! One of our team members thought up the idea for the pink and blue tablecloth and it was such a huge help! It was one of my favorite new ideas we had for this packing party.
Your plans for your channel for the upcoming year sound like just what I am looking for! I have only packed OCC for three years. I am so eager to learn more! Being a part of helping someone come to the Lord is the best thing anyone can do for another!
Oh I totally agree. I just love this ministry and how it opens the door to share the word of God and such a wonderful way. Thank you and yes I am so excited about the content this year and I really hope it helps everybody out. 🥰
THANK YOU !!!THANK YOU !!!THANK YOU !!! I am a new project leader, and had one Packing Day which was as organized as It could be under the short time circumstances. I also been looking for Exactly what you are providing how to organize a packing party, what to include, I cant wait to see what other information that you provide. !! I am planning a christmas in July packing party so this information will be helpful.
Oh how exciting on so many levels! Congratulations on becoming a new project leader. I will definitely be making more videos with lots of information on what we are doing. I can't wait to share and thank you so much for watching!
Awesome job, AnnaBeth! I think that’s the most organized packing party I have ever seen. I certainly wish the packing party I went to years ago was half as organized. You had some great ideas and even more for next year. ❤
Thank you Trish! I was so happy with our ideas this year and how it all came together. I appreciate you saying that we try to make it as organized as possible!
Thank you so much it really did work out to have everything pre-packaged at the packing party. Everything went much smoother this year. Thank you so much for watching!
My goodness, you did an AMAZING job organizing the tables. Even the signs were pretty. Color coordinating the tables and ready made pencil packs was an excellent idea. You really outdid yourself.
Wow. Your packing party looked so well organised and the room is so spacious. I think the six separate tables next year would be a great idea. I can understand people's enthusiasm to keep going, i thinking packing shoeboxes is wonderfully addictive.
You did a great job ! I love the idea of the pink and blue tablecloths and such great signage I know of a church near me that has checkers at the end to make sure all the essentials are there and that they are fully packed. It looked very organized.
Oh thank you I definitely agree next year we should have more checkers. We had a person at each of the essential item tables but I think we might have needed more. They were just so many people going through the line I'm not sure if they keep up. Thank you so much for watching!
Great job! I envy your beautiful set up. We have our packing party right after church, so in about 30 minutes we take down chairs, set up tables and put out all the stuff! I like your idea of pre labeling the boxes and wonder if you could solve your sock and undue problem by pre packing them. For example, if someone picked a girl 10-14 box it would already have the appropriate socks and undies to start? Have fun this year!
Oh thank you so much for your kind words. I will say pre labeling in the boxes was a huge help this year and we're going to continue that tradition on as we set up for our packing party this year. And actually you have a great idea about prepackaging the socks and underwear. We are going to do something similar to make it easier for everyone. Thank you so much for watching!
I like your idea about having specific tables for age and gender. I think that being able to have some of the more age specific items such as calculators for the older kids could be helpful. I also might suggest sending an extra pair of underwear with the menstrual pads as older girls may need an extra pair for their pads
Thank you yes those are wonderful ideas. Since this year we now have a group of women that work on reusable pads and getting underwear. Excited to see what they're able to get together by the end of the year.
You did amazing at organizing your tables. Maybe the prayer and explaining about the packing process at the beginning would help, even if people had already packed before. I learn something every time I watch a unboxing from all of the ladies who do videos of this. I think it’s ok to call it filler because they are basically filling up the rest of the box.I look forward to watching you videos in 2023. ❤️
You did an absolutely amazing job. I wad really impressed. Since you have so many rookie participants, consider a poster board of each size and sex with photos showing all of the items that fit into one box. What about beginning with a few cookies and a beverage to hold everyone's attention for a speech and prayer? I have been so excited to see your videos and to watch so many people get excited and educated about OCC. Thank you for sharing your ministry and vision with us.
Yes I think those are awesome ideas. I forgot to mention we did have a beverage and snack table but that's a great idea to do that at the beginning to keep everybody in one place LOL I'm excited to see what we do next year!
It sounds like you did the best you could with your group. Great great idea pre-packing the school supplies. It sounds like you learned a lot from your first packing party! I loved how you set up the essentials table. I processed so many boxes at the PC that were clearly from a packing party that were not complete. One pencil. No sharpener for example. Packing party organizers need help/ advice and it’s great that you will be sharing information in this area! I think it’s really needed. Great job Anna Beth! Merry Christmas!
This is actually one of the reasons I wanted to share my experience. I've had a couple people who have gone to the processing plant and have told me that so many boxes are missing essentials and they notice a lot of boxes that come in from packing parties are not packed well. I know that's not always true but I keep hearing that that does happen. I'm hoping with this video it will help people because I feel like the essential items are so important! Thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a Merry Christmas too!
Yes I think that's a wonderful thing! Definitely want to make sure everybody packing praise next year but our team always makes sure to pray together and our church brings all the boxes to the front of the sanctuary right before sending them all off and everybody prays over them which I think is really wonderful.
Well during our first packing party it was mostly me and one other person but this past year we got funding from our church and we use that to shop year-round
