Operation Toy Drive to bring joy to Iraqi orphans

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Tarelle Walker
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) --  Approximately 40 volunteers from the base Company Grade Officers' Council here are on a mission to bring joy to the faces of local Iraqi orphans.

Through Operation Toy Drive, the group collected toys and plan to present the gifts to Iraqi children in May.

"We just received care packages from so many great organizations back home, and almost everyone we opened had a stuffed animal inside," said Capt. Nora Nelson, the president of the Company Grade Officers' Council. "We were thinking, 'What do I do with this? Well, why don't we collect all of them and send them out so that the right people are getting these stuffed animals.'"

For Captain Nelson, the idea came in the form of an e-mail from her 12-year-old niece, Jessie, and her 15-year-old nephew, C.J., who were pushing the same toy drive in the states for a community service project.

"I'm absolutely proud of those two," the captain said. "It's great to know that even 12  and 15 year olds want to do this. Obviously, they don't know the impact their actions had. They just started the ball rolling. Yes, they know the impact of sending the toys to the orphanages, and that it will make the kids happy, but they don't know that they
motivated all of us to give back and to fi gure out what we can do better."

Operation Toy Drive helped improve community relations between military members and the local community. 

"The purpose, as a professional organization, is to win the hearts of the folks we're trying to help in Iraq, so they don't just see Americans and coalition forces as just Soldiers or Airmen, but as people who are there to help rebuild, and this is one way that we can do it, even being this far away from home," said the native of El Paso, Texas.

"When you scrape (the misconceptions) away, we're all just humans and we need to take care of each other," Captain Nelson said. "This is a great way to do that."

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