The residents of Mower County continue to give. On Monday, volunteers from Austin’s Crane Community Chapel packed up more than 400 shoe boxes filled with toys and candy and personal care items to be shipped to needy children all over the world.

The effort was part of Operation Christmas Child, which has shipped 61 million shoe boxes to children across the globe since 1993.

The chapel is this year’s relay center for Southern Minnesota, and a church van was scheduled to deliver the boxes to Rochester Monday. Once in Rochester, the boxes will be loaded onto a semitruck and delivered to the Twin Cities where they will be shipped out from there.

This is another example of how the people of Mower County rally together to help those in need when they don’t have to.

In today’s economy, it’s getting harder and harder to give to charities when local families are struggling to pay the monthly bills.

Through Operation Christmas Child, participants and volunteers found ways to give back at little or no cost.

We commend them for doing so.