Appalachia’s Mary Damron loves poor children; voice of Franklin Graham’s Operation Christmas Child

When Mary briefly saw Franklin Graham on TV in 1993, she went to friends all around the “hollers” in Appalachia and – from many or most living below the poverty level – collected 1,258 shoeboxes for the hurting children of war-torn Bosnia.   Mary had been praying for four months for these children.  She and her husband borrowed a truck and a map to drive the boxes to the Samaritan’s Purse offices in Boone, NC.  Arriving on Thanksgiving weekend, they slept in the back of the truck.  The next morning, Mary went in to look for Franklin and she told the receptionist that she had some shoe boxes.  The secretary, not knowing the number of the shoeboxes they had brought, told her to leave them “in the foyer.”  Not knowing what a “foyer” was, she further pressed to see Franklin Graham.  In time Franklin, was called at home and told by the secretary that she thought he needed to come to the office. 

When Mary saw him walking up to the truck … with oil leaking on the parking lot … she said to him: “Funny your name is Graham.  You know, you just like that famous preacher I see on TV.  I think his name is Graham too.  Billy Graham.”  For the first time she learned, from Franklin, that he was the son of Billy Graham.  When the Damrons open the back of the truck for Franklin to see the 1,258 shoe boxes from the poor people of Appalachia, he broke into tears! 

On the spot, Franklin asked Mary to go with him to Bosnia to deliver the shoeboxes.  She agreed.  Soon she was told that she would need a passport and a Visa.  She told Franklin that she could work on getting a passport, but she didn’t know about getting a Visa…for, she said, she had never had a credit card in her life!  (She thought Franklin was going to charge her for the trip.) 

Another adventure story Mary tells involves her first air flight into Atlanta.  Her friends had trouble believing that trains ran indoors …  

Now, Mary Damron — daughter with six or seven siblings of an alcoholic father, whose mother fled the home in fear of her life, whose self-esteem was nonexistent — makes several international trips a year, delivering shoeboxes to the world’s hurting children, speaking all over the country, doing all levels of interviews with the greatest of comfort, completely being herself.