Each year Assumption students fill and decorate Christmas shoe boxes with toys and other needed gifts for children overseas as part of the school’s annual “Operation Christmas Child” service project. Middle school students partner with their younger grade buddies to stuff the boxes with donated gifts and send them to children who might otherwise have no gifts. Students also write and enclose letters to the children sending messages of love and joy for the season. After being filled, the 150 boxes were brought to weekly Mass where Father Gerard O’Brien blessed them and celebrated the compassion and generosity of the children as well as all the school parents, teachers and leaders who coordinated the project logistics over several months.