Posted on 11/10/2007 1:03:48 PM PST by SandRat
The holidays are a difficult time of the year for families with soldiers deployed overseas in the military. Now a VFW Ladies Auxiliary is leading an effort to "sew" some cheer.
Judy Mattson is known as the cut up.
Mattson says her job is, "Cutting the material and putting the kits together so that people could just go ahead and sew as fast as we could."
Mattson belongs to Friday's SaddleBrooke Quilters, whose members are helping sew Christmas stockings for every Arizona Army National Guard soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are 1,200 of them.
Jeanne Soling, a Quilters member, says, "I grew up in the Vietnam era when my brother and all of his friends were going over to Vietnam. So I know how lonely they are, especially at holiday time."
Mattson hopes, "Maybe this'll help remind [Arizona Guard members] of when they were little and got Christmas stockings hanging on the fireplace."
It's a show of support for the military, although not everyone supports the war.
Betty Hughes, a founder of the organization Tucson Troop Support, says, "I do this for the soldiers, not for the President or for the people who back this war. I do this for the people who have to fight the war."
Later this month children of some of the deployed the soldiers will help stuff the stockings. But first they need your help to donate items.
Kim Sloan, who is Support Chairman for the Ladies Auxiliary VFW, says, "We're collecting ChapStick and personal care items and games and individual packets of food, anything that the troops can put in their pockets and take with them."
If you'd like to help, you can drop off donations at Dollar Tree Stores.
Other needed items include:
Phone cards
Honey sticks
Gum
Granola bars
Candy canes
Energy bars
Disposable razors
Individual drink mixes
Travel size shaving cream
Hand warmers
Candy
Small stuffed animals
Cough drops
Tissue packets
Small games
Cookies
Cash donations will also be accepted and used towards purchasing these materials.
Contact Sandy Rathbun at srathbun@kvoa.com
Troop Support Bump.
They’re going to need money for postage, too...
Actually we should update the list now that our troops have access to the toiletries and small comfort items that they were deprived of for the first year.
Heck, most of them now have laptops and digital cameras. What they most miss is what anyone would miss while in a foreign country. I suggest home made and regional foodstuffs, newest paperback books, DVD movies or magazines.
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