Bringing the Holidays To Our Troops

Bringing the Holidays To Our Troops, is a project that was born the very day the kids finished stuffing the 500 backpacks with supplies for our “Xmas in Ghana” project.  We had a bunch of candy left over that we weren’t sure what to do with.  A couple of the kids had friends and relatives who’s mom or dad were serving in the military so they suggested we send it to the soldiers of the friends and family they knew.  This occurred just before Halloween in 2007 so one of the kids suggested that since they always get way too much Halloween candy each year that they collect donated excess candy for the 2 weeks following Halloween at a few schools so they could send even more candy.  The response was overwhelming and the candy started pouring in.  We wanted to make sure the candy would get to the right places so we contacted the President of the local Blue Star Moms, Debbie Burrow  www.ccbluestarmoms.org to see if they could get the candy to the right people.

You’ve never seen so much candy pour in.  On one Friday night, it took 100 jr high volunteers 4 hours to put together 6,200 zip lock baggies full of candy and gum, each with a signed Christmas card by a child from Kids Helping Kids.

They set a goal to provide 1,000 zip lock bags to the Blue Star Moms.  In just 2 weeks Kids Helping Kids collected bags and bags, heaps and heaps of candy, gum and mints.  At the end of two weeks on a Friday late afternoon after school, 100 children came together and donated their time filling zip lock bags with candy, hand writing Christmas cards to put in each bag, and boxing them up.  In four hours they filled 6,230 zip lock bags with hope, love, encouragement and candy to send to the troops.  When Kids Helping Kids delivered all the candy to the Blue Star Moms hoping for 1,000 bags there wasn’t a dry eye when they saw all 6,230.

In response to our efforts we received this…

“Dear Kids Helping Kids,

I just wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you for your support for the troops, and great website!  I received numerous notes from children from your organization.  Thank you, and Merry Christmas!”

MSG Randall R. Surles
Embassy Bogota
Unit 5136