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Homefront groups brighten holiday for troops

Firefighters in San Diego will pick up sailors and Marines in a decorated fire truck and take them to their fire station for a hearty Christmas Eve meal — just one of numerous examples of grateful Americans making the holidays brighter for service members and their families.

“The sailors and Marines love it,” said Paul Steffens, a retired Navy captain who is executive director of the San Diego Armed Services YMCA.

The firefighters and the San Diego chapter of the ASYMCA are hardly alone.

Military children around the country will be beaming after receiving about 3.8 million toys donated by customers of Dollar Tree and other stores, which are being distributed through Operation Homefront chapters.

In areas without chapters, Operation Homefront has invited family readiness groups to pick up toys from their local Dollar Tree stores, said Meredith Leyva, Operation Homefront founder. In some areas like Norfolk, Va., chapters are holding “stocking stuffer” parties where military children can fill up large stockings with as many toys as they can fit, she said.

The Washington state chapter is making sure every installation in the state — from McChord Air Force Base to Everett Naval Station to Fort Lewis — gets toys, said chapter president Janice Buckley. At one party, she said, “it was fun watching the kids dive in for the toys” — with a first sergeant in the midst of the joyful melee, she said.

The chapter is also planning to deliver more than 700 stockings to the wounded warrior battalion at Fort Lewis on Dec. 17, she said, along with toys for children. The stockings for the troops are stuffed with goodies like CDs, DVDs, candy and decorations, and are hand-quilted by Project Linus. Gold Star Moms also donated about 100 stockings for the project, which was a community effort.

Buckley said the battalion commander is working hard to get wounded troops home for the holidays when possible, but he is also making contingency plans for those left behind.

In many areas, local citizens are adopting military families to provide needed gifts and food for an otherwise threadbare holiday.

In San Diego, 29 families have been adopted this year through the Armed Services Y program, Steffens said, adding that the program is confidential.

ASYMCA folks provide a wish list to the donor with everything from food to furniture to clothing and toys, and the donor brings the presents back to the ASYMCA. Staff members then give the presents to the family.

“It’s nothing for an individual or a company to come in with $1,700 worth of gifts for the family,” Steffens said.

Through local and national efforts like Gifts In Kind International and the annual Woman’s Day holiday fund drive, ASYMCA helps distribute gifts to thousands of military children.

At a Fort Drum, N.Y., holiday party organized by the ASYMCA and Morale, Welfare and Recreation officials, more than 4,000 new toys donated by Gifts In Kind International were given to military children. Many of their military parents are deployed to Iraq, or have recently returned. Santa made a special visit to the Dec. 11 festivities.

In San Diego, the ASYMCA is organizing many events to help selected families, including a shopping spree for military parents at the chapel, where parents can select toys for their children and receive a $50 commissary gift card. Steffens said they expect to serve about 800 families this year in that program alone.

Other events organized by the chapter include holiday parties and presents for families with autistic children at the San Diego Naval Medical Center, for families of critically ill children, and for recruiters and their families at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, along with the wounded at the Camp Pendleton and San Diego medical centers.

A volunteer organization called Avant Garde, formed 20 years ago to help the San Diego ASYMCA, put together 200 large Christmas stockings to send to troops in the hospital in Kuwait, Steffens said.

American Legion posts and other veterans’ groups around the country also have planned gifts and parties for patients at veterans’ hospitals.

Caps and shirts filled the living room of Ralph and Sandy Jacob as they prepared gifts for delivery to the 50 wounded troops at the post-traumatic stress ward at Menlo Park, part of the Department of Veterans Affairs medical facility at Palo Alto, Calif. Included with the gifts will be thank-you cards from American Legion Post 419, said Ralph Jacob, adjutant of the post. Patients will also get some extra money for purchases at the VA canteen in the facility, he said.

This year, for the first time, the post is also sending about 25 gifts to patients in the facility’s polytrauma unit, Jacob said.