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December 22, 2005
Operation Santa Highlights from 1st LAR Elves
Carrie Costantini, Operation Santa coordinator for 1st LAR sent in this report of how her part of this effort went together - sounds like a wonderful success!!Dear supporter of Operation Santa/1st LAR,
With the stockings stuffed, the boxes packed and shipped, it is time to thank you for making Christmas a reality for the Marines of 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.
First, let me tell you about my week in California. On Monday, Nov. 14th, Pat Malloy, Louise Nohl, Tina Byrd, Meagan Bergeron, Norma Bango, the famous Sophia Bango, and I met at Costco in Dana Point, California. We had a mission: to purchase items that would go into the Marines' stockings.
We bought the following:
600+ Apple cider packets
600+ Trail mix packets
2400 AA batteries
600+ White tube socks
1200 packs of Gum
600+ Chocolate chip cookies
600+ Crackers in packets
20 Large boxes of Ritz crackers (to put in the Christmas party boxes for platoons)
600+ candy bars
Believe it or not, it only took us an hour to purchase all of the items. We even had money left over on the gift cards and Costco graciously cashed them out for us. We still had big concerns about the cost of postage.
We convoyed back to the battalion area and unloaded the goodies with the kind help of Gunny Sgt. Hooker. We opened the boxes that had been sent to Louise for Operation Santa and were so amazed at the beautiful stockings, the great DVDs, CDs and books, the candies and candy canes, the hot chocolate packets, the tabletop trees, tree skirts, and decorations. It was really humbling for all of us to see just how much the 1st LAR Marines are loved.
After all of that excitement, we sent Pat Malloy (don't tell his wife but he really is very handy) off to Walmart to purchase extra dartboards and Christmas DVD's while Meagan and Tina went to get the Christmas CDs that Meagan had put together for the Marines' Christmas parties. Louise and I stayed behind at the battalion area to get the breakdown of Marines per platoon, etc.
We rendezvoused at Baja Fresh for chow (hey...this shopping thing is hard work!!). After a great lunch with lots of laughing and sharing of stories (believe it or not, Pat held his own against 4 very chatty Marine wives), we said bye to Pat until the next day and marched to Walmart to purchase summer sausages and extra Christmas trees, lights, skirts and decorations. 40 beef sticks later, we were on our way to find boxes. The Shipping Outlet in San Clemente helped us out with that and with one last trip through the 99 cent store, where we purchased 20 vehicle flags that said "Official vehicle of Santa's helpers" for LAVs, we were done for the day.
The next morning was packing day. We had a great turnout for that with Marie and Pat Malloy, Greg and Maryellen Dament, Michelle Kosid, Tina Byrd, Meredith Peterson, Laura Leikwold, Connie Phillips, Meagan Bergeron, Norma Bango, Tim Riis and Karen Dolosa. We had stocking boxes and party boxes to pack.
Speaking of those party boxes, this is what we put in them:
Summer Sausages
Crackers
Dart boards
6 in 1 board games
Christmas CD
Tabletop tree with all the trimmings
DVDs
CDs
Disposable cameras so that we can see the Christmas fun
We packed the stockings with what we had purchased at Costco the day before and added the hot chocolate packets, candies, candy canes and one Christmas card from an adult and one from a child per stocking. Just reading the cards made us laugh and sometimes, it made our eyes tear up. It was all so wonderful. After each stocking had been assembled, we tucked it into a Ziploc bag so that nothing would spill out and then put it into a box.
It took until 4:00 pm on Tuesday to get it all packed up. We agreed that our shipping day would be Thursday and all went home to rest. Packing is harder than shopping but just as much fun when you’re doing it with the right people and for such a great cause.
Shipping day was equally busy and fun. With the help of Cpl McKnight, LCpl Mastry,Carrie's husband commanded 1st LAR during their last deployment to Iraq and she continues to support them now. Thanks Carrie, you made a difference!
PFC Bennett and LCpl Washington from 1st LAR, CWO Jason Scroggs(the Family Readiness Officer), Michelle Kosid, Tina Byrd, Laura Leikwold and I managed to get 60 boxes into three cars and convoyed off to a post office in Oceanside. We invaded the post office and occupied it for an hour and a half. 60 customs forms later, the two post office employees were finally done and our packages were on their way to Iraq priority mail.
As of December 3rd, all of the boxes have arrived in Iraq. The 8 foot snowglobe lawn ornament (surprise!!) arrived a week or so later and sits in front of the chowhall at Korean Village.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting this project. Without your help, we could not have sent 1500 lbs. of Christmas cheer to the Marines of 1st LAR. Thanks to you, they will know that they are not forgotten and thanks to you, even though they won't be home for Christmas, they're going to get a little piece of home. Thank you for supporting the troops!!
Merry Christmas to all of you!!
Carrie Costantini
Posted by Deb at December 22, 2005 01:00 PM
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Comments
This is so true. Thank you so much for your help.
Posted by: Mara Neisius at November 16, 2011 03:00 PM