nah, i tend to agree

there's charity for the sake of charity, and then there's charity in the form of recruitment, with the aim of lining the pockets of others in the church.

While there are some churches who are quite happily into helping the poor no strings attached, a lot of the evangelical christian groups seem to run more as a business.

(I'm looking at you, Hillsong)

There are also evangelical churches who believe that material success on earth is a sign of god's favour (again, Hillsong) thus going after cash and teaching others to chase money.

i'd suggest if you really want to help, go for something like Oxfam. you might not be able to give the shoebox, but you can do other cool stuff (like buying chickens for villages etc)

Then give the shoeboxes at one of the christmas wishing trees, or give it to the Salvos (the Salvos being pretty cool and non-pushy for a religious group)

My school donates hundreds of these boxes to a charity. Not sure it's the same one but it's the same idea.

you can do it without worrying about the christian stuff. Try people like uniting church or anglican christian groups - they tend to be a lot less full on than catholic, protestant, spiritualist, new age etc.

If you don't like praying, just think of good thoughts and well wishes for the kids and it acts as night thought patterns rather than praying.

If not I know some old web developers I used to work with overseas in the phillipines and india that would know some underprivledged kids, if you want I can hit them up and maybe get some direct addresses and names so you know exactly who they are going to!

awesome idea though!!!