Taste of Home for Troops

[darrels joy]

Taste of Home for Troops

Birthday presents for 11-year-old Hannah Souers have turned into Christmas presents for Yakima Valley soldiers serving in Iraq.

And what started as a small project to send gift boxes to 22 soldiers grew to gift boxes for 132 servicemen.

For her 11th birthday on Sept. 12, Hannah says she "was looking for something to do for someone else." Research on the Internet gave her the idea to send boxes of gifts to soldiers in Iraq. Instead of giving presents to Hannah at her birthday party, friends brought boxes and gifts to fill them for the soldiers.

For the boxes to arrive in Iraq by Christmas, they had to be shipped by regular mail rather than through slower military shipment channels. And for that, Hannah needed money ? about $12 per box.

An appeal to the community through radio station KIT for donations for postage resulted in an overwhelming response. Enough money was donated to send the original 22 boxes plus purchase enough gift items and postage for an additional 110 boxes.

Wednesday, Hannah and some of her classmates from St. Joseph-Marquette School packed those 110 boxes with a variety of items, including socks, books, shaving cream candy and pens. The youngsters also included hand written messages in the boxes.

"The support of the community was amazing," said Lisa Souers, Hannah's mother.

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Hannah Souers, left, and her classmate Emily Smith both reach for items to fill shoeboxes which will be sent as Christmas presents to soldiers in Iraq.

[revwardoc]

The US Postal Service has a program where you candonate a $10/100 minute phone card for the troops in Iraq in Afghanistan. I donated one yesterday and I mentioned to the clerk that I was in the AF and know how good it feels to speak to a family member, especially around the holidays. He then rolled up his sleeve to reveal an anchor tattoo with the name of a ship on a banner above it (it's so old I couldn't read the name). I called him a "swab-jockey", he called me a "fly-boy", I called him an"anchor-cranker", he called me a "REMF", I called him a "mermaid-muncher"; by then we were both laughing so hard I couldn't hear what he called me, but we shook hands and wished each other a Merry Christmas, and I went away feeling good.