Kirkuk Airmen build desks for Iraqi children

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Mindy Bloem
  • 506th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
KIRKUK REGIONAL AIR BASE, Iraq (AFNS) --  Several Airmen from the 506th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron here volunteered to refurbish desks for school children in March.

The idea for refurbishing the school desks sprang from a conversation Chief Master Sgt. Tom Pizzi, the 506th ECES chief enlisted manager, deployed from McChord Air Force Base, Wash., had with Stacy Barrios, a public diplomacy officer for the Kirkuk Provincial Reconstruction Team at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

Originally, the chief wanted to build or paint a school in Kirkuk, but learned that security procedures would make that unlikely.

Chief Pizzi said Kirkuk's director of education told him the desks in the Kirkuk Province were in poor shape and could use repairing.

The chief said he also learned from some of the local nationals who work as contractors on base, that many Iraqi school children sit three or four to one small desk.

Initially, the chief and his crew of local nationals and civil engineer Airmen received 25 desks for repair. The desks, broken and rusted, were heaped in piles in a field outside one of the local schools.

Undeterred by the condition of the desks, the crew began welding and sanding the metal frames, cutting and building the wood for the framework, and painting and finishing the desks, the chief said.

Tech. Sgt. Douglas Shelton, deployed from Dover AFB, Del., volunteered his structural expertise to make the desks safer for the children.

"They brought the frame to me and asked my opinion," he said. "I showed them how to round the corners of the desks, so the kids don't hurt themselves."

The desks are built to seat two children to every desk, but Sergeant Shelton wanted to add a personal touch.

"I also put dividers in the compartment underneath the desktop so they can feel like they have their own personal space," the sergeant said. "I'd do anything to help the kids. I've seen them at the gates begging for stuff and it just breaks my heart. It's scary seeing kids live like that. I don't do it for the glory; I do it because it helps."

Twenty-five of the desks have been assembled and are ready to be delivered to schools in need; however, the chief said he wants to complete 100 before he leaves in March.

Chief Pizzi said the new chief enlisted manager for CE agreed to continue the project, and several of the crewmembers from the new rotation have already begun helping out.

"We're building templates for the desks with all the measurements and patterns to make it easy for the next crew to continue the project," said Master Sgt. John Wanner, deployed from McChord AFB, Wash. "We sent one of the desks downtown to be evaluated, and they (the education director and his staff) were overwhelmed and said they thought it was a brand new desk. That was pretty amazing to hear."

Chief Pizzi said he has volunteered on many humanitarian efforts before and enjoys making things better for someone else who doesn't have what we have.

"The stuff we have, we take for granted," he said. "If every kid in America could see how these children live, they would appreciate what they have in America."

He also said he hopes to leave a positive impression on the locals here.

"Those desks are going to live a lot longer in their minds," the chief said. "I hope the fact that the Americans came in and took those beat up, broken down desks and rebuilt them and put them back in the schools will change the mindset of the children and the parents of how they remember the Americans. It's leaving a legacy."