by Jake Terry, Graduate Assistant Sports Information Director
BATON ROUGE -- The LSU gymnastics team continued what is now an annual tradition of participating in Adopt a Box for Operation Christmas Child by sending boxes to underprivileged children Tuesday.
Members of the team wrapped gift boxes and filled them with various toys like jump ropes, coloring books, crayons and dolls as well as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap and other toiletries.
“We got a DVD in the mail from this organization, Samaritan’s Purse, and we watched it one day at the gym,” head coach D-D Breaux said. “The kids were really moved by it, and we have been doing this for quite a few years. It begins our focus we have on Christmas and how we prepare for Thanksgiving and move toward the month of December. This goes to kids our gymnasts don’t know – kids you read about it and see the incredible poverty they live in.”
Each gymnast gave $7 in order to adopt a box. After the gymnasts filled and wrapped the boxes assistant coach Philip Ogletree took them to his church where the boxes will be shipped to Samaritan’s Purse.
Samaritan’s Purse will deliver the boxes around the world to underprivileged children.
“The girls have to be creative in what they can send because there is a strict parameter on what can go in the boxes, so they created a nice blend with toys and essentials,” Breaux said. “Our girls will not send just one toothbrush or tube of toothpaste, but they will send two or three to get the kids through a majority of the year. It is a real gratifying thing for our gymnasts.”
