The Hi-Line gives to Operation: Christmas Child

Just before Thanksgiving, every year for the last five, maybe six, he said, George Alberda has backed a large box truck into the parking lot of the Community Alliance Church to load it with boxes that are filled with smaller boxes.

The smaller boxes, shoeboxes in Christmas wrapping, are crammed with things like toys, school supplies, hygiene products, notes of encouragement for poverty-stricken children all over the world.

The holiday season is here, and Operation Christmas Child volunteers like Alberda and his friend and volunteer-in-crime, Joe Braaksmi, were driving around the state picking...