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Half Fast

Half Fast

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Half Fast
No, this thread is not about @eman1200 's dating life. Welcome to the 2023 Christmas season thread.

As is our standing holiday tradition, the Half Fast clan has kicked off the season by volunteering at an Operation Christmas Child processing center. This year we're accompanied by a group from our church and we're in Charlotte, NC, where we've been inspecting shoebox gifts and packing them into shipping cartons for the last few days. Yesterday's packages are going to kids in Peru, today's could go almost anywhere on the planet. Evenings have been spent in front of the fireplace, watching Christmas movies accompanied by hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. If this sort of week doesn't put you into the Christmas spirit, you're a world-class Scrooge.

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So have you kicked off the season? What are your plans, traditions, etc.? What's Santa bringing you, and whose Santa are you? Do you have Christmas aviation plans?
 
Half Fast said:
So have you kicked off the season?
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XM radio has their 24 hours of Christmas music. I tuned in yesterday and it will stay on until the end of the month....December....

My wife tells me that in the Philippines the Christmas season starts in September.
 
Catch a ho, and another ho, merry Christmas.
 
I've packed boxes in that same facility multiple times. It can be tiring, in particular when you challenge neighboring groups to see who can pack the most, but extremely fulfilling.
 
Half Fast said:
No, this thread is not about @eman1200 's dating life. Welcome to the 2023 Christmas season thread.

As is our standing holiday tradition, the Half Fast clan has kicked off the season by volunteering at an Operation Christmas Child processing center. This year we're accompanied by a group from our church and we're in Charlotte, NC, where we've been inspecting shoebox gifts and packing them into shipping cartons for the last few days. Yesterday's packages are going to kids in Peru, today's could go almost anywhere on the planet. Evenings have been spent in front of the fireplace, watching Christmas movies accompanied by hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. If this sort of week doesn't put you into the Christmas spirit, you're a world-class Scrooge.

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So have you kicked off the season? What are your plans, traditions, etc.? What's Santa bringing you, and whose Santa are you? Do you have Christmas aviation plans?
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I'm curious - how much resorting typically happens between boxes? I would assume there is a lot of variation in the quality of contents between boxes - do you guys sort that out on the fly or does it get dumped into a communal pile and boxes repacked from scratch? Our church was a local drop-off location. I think they had 4 or so ABF short-pup trailers that they filled.
 
CJones said:
I'm curious - how much resorting typically happens between boxes? I would assume there is a lot of variation in the quality of contents between boxes - do you guys sort that out on the fly or does it get dumped into a communal pile and boxes repacked from scratch? Our church was a local drop-off location. I think they had 4 or so ABF short-pup trailers that they filled.
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There is a lot of quality variation between boxes, but you're not actually allowed to take things out of boxes unless they are "contraband" (like toothpaste, liquids, or candy, among other things). There are filler bins with some items to add to boxes that don't come with much inside, but you're not allowed to shift items from one shoebox to another.
 
CJones said:
I'm curious - how much resorting typically happens between boxes? I would assume there is a lot of variation in the quality of contents between boxes - do you guys sort that out on the fly or does it get dumped into a communal pile and boxes repacked from scratch? Our church was a local drop-off location. I think they had 4 or so ABF short-pup trailers that they filled.
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@SkyChaser is spot on. "Preserve the integrity of the box" is the directive. There are some items, like liquids or food, that can't go and have to be removed. Otherwise nothing is taken out. A few items may be added, particularly if something had to be removed.

Every box is opened, though, and carefully inspected. Then it's re-closed, sealed with shipping tape, a QR tracking code is scanned if the sender wants to track where his box goes, and the box is placed into a carton. The cartons are sealed, loaded onto a truck, and away they go. Today we packed boxes going to Ecuador and Burundi.

And we're all exhausted.
 
Mahneuvers said:
I've packed boxes in that same facility multiple times. It can be tiring, in particular when you challenge neighboring groups to see who can pack the most, but extremely fulfilling.
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This is our first year at Charlotte, but we'll go back. Prior years we went to Atlanta, but that's become a traffic nightmare as well as logistically challenging. Samaritan's Purse does not own a facility in Atlanta, so the location changes every year. Last year we didn't know where we were going until October and that just doesn't work if you need to reserve hotel rooms for a large group. Charlotte's center is always the same, since SP owns it, and we were able to reserve a block of rooms back in the summer.
 
you didn't even give us charlotte folks a chance to let you take us out to dinner. that's ok though. no big deal. really. it's all about the kids.
 
Tons of fun! I'll try to not be a walking biohazard next year.
 
Half Fast said:
@SkyChaser is spot on. "Preserve the integrity of the box" is the directive. There are some items, like liquids or food, that can't go and have to be removed. Otherwise nothing is taken out. A few items may be added, particularly if something had to be removed.

Every box is opened, though, and carefully inspected. Then it's re-closed, sealed with shipping tape, a QR tracking code is scanned if the sender wants to track where his box goes, and the box is placed into a carton. The cartons are sealed, loaded onto a truck, and away they go. Today we packed boxes going to Ecuador and Burundi.

And we're all exhausted.
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Wow. That's awesome! I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) assumed that what you put in the box might not necessarily be what makes to the recipient. I'm a process & logistics guy, so I always think about how to maintain standardization in a high volume pack-out process like this, but obviously that isn't the focus for this scenario. That's awesome that 'preserve the integrity of the box' is a big deal.
 
CJones said:
That's awesome that 'preserve the integrity of the box' is a big deal.
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Let me offer an example.

Yesterday my wife was inspecting a box in which each individual item was wrapped in Christmas paper (please don’t do that!). Rather than tearing off the wrapping paper, she carefully sliced the tape on one end, unwrapped just enough to inspect what was under the wrapping, then re-wrapped and taped the item.

It took her some time. We do need to move the boxes quickly because there are so many (we processed over 124,000 shoeboxes on Tuesday alone), but not at the expense of a careful inspection. Some items could get a kid arrested (like American money) or shot (like a realistic-looking toy gun) in certain countries, so inspecting is very important.
 
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Seriously though, we always do a few of those boxes, thanks for the insight as to where they go next on their journey.
 
I'm playing a one hour set at a community nativity festival today. I hope my fingers survive.
 
That looks like a good time, and an excellent Christmas spirit operation to do. Nicely done, Half Fast clan. :)
 
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