Used Christmas cards are recycled into gifts for needy kids

Question: Does anybody recycle used Christmas cards? I mean for a charitable purpose? I think you wrote about this last year, and I meant to save the column but now I can’t find it.

Q: Is that lady you wrote about last year still collecting Christmas cards? If so, please reprint that information.

Answer: Yes. Marilyn Gilbert is happy to receive used Christmas cards, as long as they are in good condition. You can mail them to her at 247 Akiohala St., Kailua, HI 96734. She’s also willing to pick up donations in Kailua; write her with the preferred location, date and time of the pickup. Include your name and phone number so that she can call to confirm.

To save on mailing costs, feel free to mail just the fronts of the used cards. She’s also happy to receive out-of-date calendars with festive or inspiring images.

Gilbert volunteers with others from Calvary Chapel Kaneohe to put together shoe boxes full of gifts and basic necessities for needy children around the world, which are distributed through Operation Christmas Child. The volunteers cut out inspiring images from the front of the recycled Christmas cards to decorate the shoe boxes and to make small puzzles that are tucked as gifts inside. They work on the project year-round.

Gilbert was delighted with the response of Kokua Line readers last year, whose contributions helped Calvary Chapel Kaneohe volunteers finish 4,300 shoe boxes for Christmas 2016, part of the 47,000 prepared by volunteers statewide, she said.

Based on last year’s response, she wanted to mention that unused cards (with envelopes) also are accepted.

“Some people who wrote said they had new cards … and they wanted to know if we take those, too. We do, but for that we want the whole card and the envelope. We’ll put it inside the shoe box as a gift for the child,” she said.

Gilbert also seeks bulk donations of new T-shirts and individual bars of soap to include in future shoe boxes. “We would greatly appreciate a contact with silk-screeners who have T-shirts that have been misprinted and would like to donate them for the shoe boxes. Also, if there are any hotels who might be interested in donating soaps for the boxes, that would be great,” said Gilbert. Potential donors may email her at gil.aloha@hawaiiantel.net.

Operation Christmas Child is a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse, a nondenominational evangelical Christian relief organization. You can learn more at 808ne.ws/­opchristchild.

Q: Why are there grooves in the middle of the lanes on Likelike Highway, both town-bound and Kaneohe-bound? As a motorcyclist, I can attest that this is very dangerous. I have almost had an accident as a result.

A: “The grooves in between the lanes on Likelike Highway are not an intentional feature. Our maintenance crew will patch them within the next two weeks,” Shelly Kunishige, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, said Wednesday.

Q: On the Kaneohe side of the Wilson Tunnel on Likelike Highway, there is an emergency runaway truck/car ramp that has been out of commission and barricaded for well over a month and a half or maybe two months. Why? When will it be reopened?

A: The state DOT closed the runaway truck ramp on Likelike Highway in Kaneohe to repair the net and cable system, which is the system used to slow runaway trucks, Kunishige said. While that system was out of service, the department temporarily installed sand barrels within the ramp.

The net and cables have been repaired. The runaway truck ramp reopened Dec. 3, she said.

Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.