The holidays are approaching quickly and there are many out there who rely on the kind donations of others.
“I think we’ve got to the point we’re engrained in the community,” said Operation Support Our Soldiers Project Coordinator Gary Clare. “People look forward to this every year. It broke our hearts we couldn’t do it last year, but we are back on again this year.”
Last year, Blair County’s Operation S.O.S. could not send packages overseas due to military safety concerns. Troop locations were classified. This year, those same concerns exist, but Operation S.O.S. found another way to help.
“We are doing this one a little differently because this troop is at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia,” Clare said. “They are returning home to Fort Sill, Oklahoma on December 20th.”
Smith Transport will help bring about 450 boxes to Fort Sill, where soldiers will return to after deployment.
“This way they can have Christmas on the base,” Clare said.
There are more than 400 soldiers in the 3-2 Air Defense Artillery Regiment. They need anything and everything you can donate.
“I’m always concerned until pack night,” Clare said. “But the public has been very gracious over the years. We’ve put out the word and the public has just overwhelmingly supported this project.”
“I encourage my fellow employees to donate and I told them, ‘I’ll make it easy on you. You go get the stuff. I’ll bring it, drop it off,'” said Karen Koehle who was at Smith Furniture in Duncansville, dropping off bags on behalf of Value Drug Company.
Donations will be accepted until November 19th. Boxes will be packed up on December 6th and shipped out the 12th.
“It looks like a mass assembly line,” Clare explained. “We set these tables up in a big circle and the public comes in and we take an empty box and we run it down the line, and you hand an item to the box.”
“We love our soldiers,” Koehle said. “My son is in the air force actually, and I just think it’s a really good cause and we want to support them the best we can.”
To find out what items you can donate and where to drop them off, go to www.smithfurniturehof.com