The Highland County Board of Commissioners announced that November 2021 will be Operation Christmas Child Month at its weekly Wednesday morning meeting.
Two representatives for the program were at the meeting, David Zimmerman and Lela McWhorton. Zimmerman said Samaritan’s Purse has been organizing the program since 1993 and has delivered more than 168 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children around the world.
He said he hopes to see 835,000 shoeboxes collected in the Great Lakes region during its national collection, which runs from Nov. 15-23. Zimmerman said the Great Lakes region includes Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia.
He said Highland County is part of the South Central Ohio area team and brings together a couple of counties. He said there will be about 12,000 shoeboxes from this area’s teams and that many or even most of them are from Highland County.
Zimmerman said the shoeboxes are filled with things like toys and hygiene items. He said there are items that cannot go in the boxes, such as breakable or items that could spill and items that have expiration dates.
McWhorton said each box also has a small booklet in the language of the location it is found for that tells the Gospel’s story. She also said older children are asked if they want to learn more and receive a bigger booklet.
McWhorton said those donating items can bring in any shoebox and that it doesn’t have to say Operation Christmas Child. They can be brought to the First Methodist Church in Hillsboro during the collection week. Zimmerman, however, said there could be other drop-off locations may be closer to the person dropping them off. Visit the Samaritan’s Purse’s website, type in a zip code and the five closest locations show up along with the hours they’re open. The program offers curbside drop-off at all the locations so people don’t need to get out of their vehicle.
In other news, Joe Adray, the Highland County Mobility manager, gave an update on the county transportation plan. He said the organization is currently in the public comment phase, which ends on Oct. 21, and then there will be a final meeting on Oct. 25. Adray said the plan will then be submitted to the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) in mid-November and generally be approved by mid-December. Adray said if anyone has a question or an issue, they can call him at 937-402-6156.
The commissioners also held a bid opening for cash rent cropland at the Leesburg Industrial Park for the farm years of 2022 through 2024. Hattan Farms won the bid with a price of $253 per acre and an overall bid of $14,927.
Jeff Duncan, board president, said the roof at the Hi-TEC Center is finished and those that worked on the building are in the process of clearing the site of equipment.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
