(LE MARS) Volunteers Thursday night packed a show of support from Le Mars area residents into about 100 boxes.
The holiday care packages are to be shipped to Troop C of the Iowa Army National Guard in Le Mars activated in August and other soldiers serving their country.
The United Methodist Church of Le Mars was packing headquarters for about two dozen volunteers who lined the boxes with news from home–an edition of the Daily Sentinel newspaper.
Personal care and comfort items like shampoo and foot warmers were the first in the boxes followed by donated food, snacks, toothbrushes, drink mix and the dozens of items collected at 15 businesses, churches and schools. Fruit snacks, toothpaste and peanut butter filled crackers were among the fill items.
Mary Reynolds of the Le Mars Area Chamber of Commerce worked with the volunteers to provide a holiday greeting card showing a snowy scene from the Pioneer Village at the Plymouth County Fairgrounds. The business community’s contribution was a message of thanks signed from the citizens of Le Mars. The greeting will be the first item those serving their country see when they open the holiday care packages.
One of the volunteers organizing the show of support, Pat Warner, gives special thanks to the school children for their response to a request for donated items for the soldiers.
Volunteers packed, filled out mailing labels and sealed the packages.
As an indication of the community’s giving, Warner told the volunteers enough postage money had been donated to ship 123 packages. She’s still taking names of anyone serving their country who is not part of Troop C who should receive a package. The names may be emailed to pdwarner@frontiernet.net or messages with the names and addresses may be left on her answering machine by calling 712.546.5778.
The care package effort is coordinated through the Le Mars Area Ministerial Association.
