Thank
you to everyone who assisted in making
Operation Santa at the Hospitals
an overwhelming success.
By facility:
Balboa:
Beth was our Op Santa rep and if she hadn't earned her
wings before, she definitely has now. Last minute, she
was shipped 85 stockings and a check to go shop, stuff
and deliver stockings to Balboa since we couldn’t
confirm that Mooremart had shipped to them. And several
days after I mailed the stuff to Beth, the Mooremart care
packages arrived and Balboa declined to accept our stockings
due to a shortage of space, although they did accept the
Quixstar gift cards, and the Christmas cards had been
shipped there earlier. So..I went to every facility in
the area to see if they would like our stockings. Nope...
THEN we found that there was a group in San Clemente who
threw a Christmas Eve dinner for single Marines who couldn't
make it home for the holidays. We immediately sent Beth
additional funds to cover last minute additions to stockings
only to find out that the group had failed to raise enough
money to pay for the dinner. Thankfully, Patti Patton-Bader
assisted with funding and the dinner was held.
Brooke:
Working with a cooperative Liaison is a blessing. Grant
Olbrich is one of those guys.
We shipped the Christmas cards to Grant separately, and
50 stockings, Quixtar gift cards, and a check to Lisa
to stuff stockings and then deliver. The facility was
inundated with goodies and so Grant asked her to purchase
gift cards instead, so they got Target gift cards.
Bethesda:
25 stuffed stockings complete with Quixstar gift cards,
and a remote control car or robo panda were delivered
to the facility on Dec. 29th while the Marine Moms-Bethesda
were holding a very nice luncheon. I ended up with lots
of leftover stockings since there were only a handful
of patients on the ward.
The luncheon was held across from one of the dayrooms
and I noticed a couple of young people hanging around
in there. I ran across with stockings for all three of
them, and wished them happy holidays (it was after Christmas).
I noticed a little later that the young girl was by herself
over in the dayroom so I went back over to see if she
was hungry. She couldn't have been more than 19. She told
me that she couldn't believe the Christmas cheer at the
hospital. Her fiancé is a sailor assigned to Bethesda
as a ceremonial guard and he had caught strep throat right
before she came up to be with him for the holidays. When
she got there, it was obvious that there was more wrong
with him and she insisted that he go back to the hospital.
He had contracted some kind of secondary infection and
ended up as a patient there.
With all of this, she still said that her fiancé
had had the best Christmas this year since joining the
military. His family did not approve of his choice and
gives him zero support. All of the cards and stockings
and care packages that were sent for Bethesda made his
life a little better even though he was truly very sick.
This is why we do these things.
Walter Reed:
50 stuffed stockings donated by the St. Albans Boys School
in Bethesda as well as dvds, gift baskets, Mooremart packages,
Christmas cards, and of course the Quixtar gift cards
were delivered to the donations table at the Mologne House
on Dec. 29th. The table was pretty bare when we got there
- two boxes of GS cookies and a box of oatmeal packets.
That's it. So Operation Santa really filled up the table.
Way to go, everybody!!!
It would be near impossible to mention everyone who helped
- so many people and different organizations from all
over the country made it a point to help bring Christmas
cheer to those in the hospitals over the holidays.
Special thank yous must go to:
Jack Spencer and the Spencer Team
Paul Moore and the Mooremart folks
The St. Albans School in Bethesda
Frost Middle School in Fairfax
The residents of O'Shaugnessy dormitory at Virginia Tech
Beth Schietzelt
Lisa Luhrman
MaryBeth Swad
LT. Col. Grant Olbrich, USMC
Patti Patton-Bader
-Carrie
December
19, 2007
Thank you, thank you for your support of Operation Santa
at the Hospitals.
The support for our wounded/injured heroes has been overwhelming
and is deeply appreciated.
Merry Christmas,
and all the best to you and your families in 2008.
~Carrie
and Jane
(We’ll post an update after the holidays.)
is gearing up to brighten Christmas
for our Marines and Corpsmen at Bethesda, Walter Reed,
Balboa Naval Hospital, and Brooke AMC.
I am happy to be working with Carrie this holiday season,
helping to collect cards to include in the stockings.
Here’s a little history about how this wonderful
project began, with information at the end if you would
like to help either with cards or donations.
Operation Santa
started in 2004 when Deb and Connie, two Marine Moms (www.marinecorpsmoms.com)
wanted to send some Christmas cheer to their sons' units
in Iraq. It grew over the weeks and they ended up shipping
over 6,000 stuffed stockings. From there, it has taken
on a life of its own. In 2006 they mailed 17,000 stockings
to deployed Marines and 300 to deployed National Guard
units.
Operation Santa also branched out last year to include
those wounded/injured service members who were in the
hospitals at Bethesda and Walter Reed on Christmas Day.
Carrie and her friends delivered homemade stockings stuffed
with $10.00 Subway and $5.00 Dunkin' Donuts gift cards,
gum, candy, crackers, cookies,
pads of paper and pens, and cards sent from all over the
country to heroes on the wards. It made their Christmas
Day that much more special to be able to let the patients
know that they were loved and thought of by so many grateful
Americans.
This year, Operation Santa has
been expanded to include Brooke AMC and Balboa Naval hospital
as well as Walter Reed and Bethesda. Any OIF/OEF wounded
from all branches of the military that are on the wards
the day the stockings are delivered will receive one.
Carrie says they will stick with the stocking stuffers
listed above. What is going to change is how she raises
the funds or has the material goods donated. In the past,
they have raised funds and then gone shopping with the
money. This year, she would like to see if individual
businesses like Dunkin' Donuts and Subway, etc. would
be interested in donating the cards themselves.
Individuals and organizations
interested in supporting the efforts at any of the medical
centers listed can contact Carrie Costantini, at wrcostan@comcast.net
or by phone (703) 670-4108.
We are in particular need of stocking
stuffers and postage money. Marine Corps Moms and the
Marine Corps Family Foundation are 501(c)(3) organizations
and thus donations would be tax deductible.
December
21, 2007
Christmas card update:
Our deadline for the postmark for our Christmas card
collection was December 3, 2007.
It is now officially over and the response has been overwhelming.
Thank you so much for the approximately 5,000 cards received
in support of our wounded and injured Heroes.
That’s about it folks…
I’m excited. Carrie’s excited. Any questions,
please contact one of us. And… thank you.
Until next time...
Update on Operation Santa
– November 29, 2007:
A quick note from Jane – For those of you who signed
up for the Marine Mom-Bethesda newsletters, I am having
problems sending them out. Yes, I am technically deficient,
I admit it. I’m hoping to resolve the problem soon.
The card part of Operation Santa at the Hospitals has
been great and I am keeping count on the homepage of how
many cards have been received to date. Postmark deadline
is December 3, 2007 for them and the address and info
about them is above. I've warned the postmaster.... sounds
like there will be a lot more coming in to go with the
stockings for the four hospitals.
Everything is appreciated and there is still time to
help us make this a great Christmas for the guys and gals
at the hospitals. I am passing this on to you from Carrie...
Over the next 6 weeks, we'll be surrounded by Christmas
carols of all
types. One that always tugs at the heartstrings for me
is "I'll be
Home for Christmas". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWWXeNy_dJg
"I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams".
What a line for the times we live in. It will ring true
for our military service members in Iraq or Afghanistan
or some other far flung location. Their families will
miss them and they will miss their families. Operation
Santa has programs to assist in sending Christmas love
to them this holiday
season. Operation Santa also focuses on another group
of heroes this
Christmas season. Those men and women who will be in the
hospital at
Brooke, Bethesda, Balboa and Walter Reed.over the holidays.
They
won't be home for Christmas either. Operation Santa at
the Hospitals
will bring them some Christmas love in the form of a handmade,
stuffed stocking. We're stuffing stockings with all kinds
of goodies
like candy, cookies, crackers, little pads of paper and
pens, gift
cards to local fast food restaurants, cards from people
all over the
country, etc. We can help them be home for Christmas even
if it is
only in their dreams. It's easier than you think.
This year, I'm partnering with Marine Moms-Bethesda and
again operating under Marine Corps Family Foundation's
Operation Santa project.
Marine Corps Family Foundation is a 501c3 organization
so monetary donations are tax deductible. If you are donating
to our Operation Santa at the Hospitals project, please
note that on your check and mail it to:
Connie Riecke,
Marine Corps Family Foundation,
4000 Lancaster Drive-Suite 57
Salem, OR 97309
or in the note box at the Paypal link.
http://www.marinecorpsfamilyfoundation.org/santa.html
Thanks everyone. Until next time,
