Even though Christmas is a couple of months away, several Montgomery County students got into the holiday spirit on the morning of Oct. 27 in a classroom at Montgomery County High School.

An FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) group held a packing party in which the members were putting donated items into boxes that will be delivered to New Florence Baptist Church during National Collection Week on Nov 13-20. It’s part of a national project called Operation Christmas Child by Samaritan’s Purse, which delivers gift-filled shoeboxes to children around the world.

Senior Jaylynn Zerr was the leader of the group that also included senior Beth Bextermiller, juniors Aysia Adams and Beckham Cothren and Zerr’s younger sisters, Alaina and Lydia. The students packed items such as pencils, notebooks, puzzles, Barbie dolls, toothbrushes, flashlights, shoes and soap in shoe boxes while listening to Christmas music.

Zerr took some donated items during a collection drive at MCHS on Oct. 17-26.

“I am very happy with what we did,” Zerr said. “My goal was to pack six boxes at the beginning. But I think we will be able to pack about 12 with all of the things we have donated and brought in. So I am really excited about that. Since this is the first year that we are doing it, I didn’t know how well it was going to go, but I’m really happy with the result. I’m hoping that we keep doing this next year and we will get more each year so we can keep building up in how many we do.”

There were only nine boxes at the packing party, which started at 9 a.m. Zerr said her group will receive more boxes from New Florence Baptist Church, which has been a collection site for about 20 years.

“They donated all of the boxes and the labels and things so that we can pack them and bring them to where they need to be,” Zerr said. “We’re thankful to them for helping us out.”

Zerr said she and her group enjoyed making the trip to a couple of stores on Oct. 26 to buy items.

“For me, I like doing that,” Zerr said. “I like picking out things for other people because I like giving people gifts and seeing their reaction. For this, I won’t actually get to see their reaction, but we will be able to track the boxes so we’ll know what part of the world they’ll go to. I know that it warms my heart to know that I am helping other people out, especially showing them that Christ is there and he’s alive and well.”

There are 10 active members in the MCHS FCA group. Zerr said the organization is in its first year back since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were laid back on some of the things because we had a bunch of restrictions,” Zerr said. “So since this is a student-led organization, the teachers can help, but they can’t be the ones to do things like setting up. This year, I’ve been fortunate that I set things up. We started going to weekly Bible studies in the morning at school. We did an outdoor movie thing for an outreach project. This is our service project for this year. Hopefully, we will get to do another one next semester. That is something that we’re hoping that we could get more members and this keeps going on after I graduate.”