« Early morning phone call | Main | America's military as first responder »

October 02, 2005


Operation Santa USMC 2005


In late summer 2005, thousands of United States Marines left for seven month deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many of these Marines, this will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas they will be away from home and family. For others, it will be the second or third in a row. And it is an unfortunate fact that some of these young men and women will not receive mail and packages from friends and family members. Although they have made a choice to serve their country, it's going to be a lonely holiday. And not just for the Marines but for family members back home as well.

With the help of amazing volunteers all over the country, for the second year the Marine Corps Moms hope to make a difference for our Marines.

Last year, we started out with an idea that we'd send Christmas stockings to the 42 Marines in my son's platoon. The project grew from there, and six exhausting weeks later, over 6,000 Christmas stockings had been mailed from individuals and groups all over the United States. Classrooms, businesses, scout troops, churches, and clubs adopted platoons or companies of deployed Marines. We sent stockings, they filled and mailed them. And it made a difference. The Marines in the picture above were deployed along the Syrian border. It was a dusty primitive place to spend seven months, but they did it for us. And troop supporters all over the country made Christmas merrier for them . . . and 5,800 other Marines. You can help us make that same difference this year.

Here's our plan:

Operation Santa USMC 2005 will provide as many battalions as possible with Christmas-in-a-Box. Each platoon in the battalions will receive a box containing the following:



Battalions are made up of 4 or more companies, and each company has a number of platoons. Each platoon has 30 or more Marines. We need church groups, organizations, clubs, employer groups, etc. to sponsor platoons and fill their boxes. We also need volunteers to sew the Christmas stockings and donations to help with postage and filling boxes. All boxes need to be mailed by Thanksgiving, so please sign up now.

If you can help make the Christmas season merrier for our Marines in Iraq, please contact one of us:

Deb Conrad - Operation Santa Coordinator - 541-974-6948 deb@marinecorpsmoms.com

Connie Riecke - Operation Santa Coordinator - 503-838-4111 riecke@marinecorpsmoms.com

And if you can help sew stockings (this is a great time to clean out your stash of Christmas fabrics), contact:

Terry Kallmbah, Stocking Coordinator - terry@marinecorpsmoms.com

Right now, we have 2 battalions with coordinators. If you'd like to help with one of these battalions, contact the coordinator. If you'd like to make sure another battalion is included, contact Deb or Connie.

Connie Riecke - 3/7 Marines - Riecke@marinecorpsmoms.com

Carrie Costantini - 1st LAR - Carrie@marinecorpsmoms.com

This project is sponsored by The Marine Corps Family Foundation, a 501(c3 organization. All donations made through the Foundation are tax deductible. We will have the Foundation website up very soon. Until then, please contact Connie Riecke at 503-838-4111 if you'd like to make a donation to the project.

Posted by Deb at October 2, 2005 09:54 PM