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Niceville Kids Collect Gifts for Iraqi Kids

By Sheila Vaughen, staff writer Eglin Eagle

March 26, 2004 -- “When they (the Iraqi people) see we’re not bad guys, because of all we’re doing for them, maybe one soldier won’t be killed in Iraq,” said Erica Daniel a 15-year old freshman at Niceville Senior High School.

For Erica and her mother Diana Reese, this is one of the potential benefits of a fundraising project, organized by some area students and Ms. Reese, that generated approximately $10,000 worth of donations for children of an Iraqi schoolhouse near Balad Air Base in Iraq.  The donations of school supplies and money went to assembling, filling, packaging and mailing 200 handcrafted bags containing crayons, markers, drawing tablets and personalized toys. 

Named Operation Iraqi Friendship, the project was spearheaded by Ms. Reese, Erica, her 12-year-old brother Tim Calvert, baby sister Bailey Reese, 7, and family friend Brad Steinke, 15.  Numerous other Niceville kids also put in countless hours for the operation, which got off the ground largely because of Maj. Keith Peloquin during his Iraq deployment.  He is a C-37 pilot stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

A friend of Ms. Reese, Major Peloquin was instrumental in establishing a contact with the Iraqi school.  The chaplains assigned to Balad Air Base have also been actively involved in the operation, which is still sending needed goods to the children.  Just before his deployment to Iraq was ending, Major Peloquin passed the project over to Lt. Col. Craig King, a F-15 pilot with the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin.  Colonel King, who has a daughter at Niceville High School, is still involved in distributing the goods to the children of the Balad schoolhouse.  He is convinced the project has filled an important purpose.

“This is clearly the right thing to do…these children live in an environment where they have to make some adult-sized decisions at an early age.  The way these local children and their families view America impacts those of us serving over here in a very real way….In most cases, they’ll never forget that American kids and troops went out of their way to help them out,” Colonel King said.

Ms. Reese said that according to Major Peloquin, when the Iraqi kids first held the supplies their first instinct was to share.

“The kids were each given a box of crayons, but the Iraqi kids would only take one crayon because that’s all they were used to,” she said.  “We were told about kids who would take just one crayon and break it in two, giving the other half to a child next to them,” she said.

Ms. Reese said the Airmen in Iraq reported that when the Iraqi kids colored pictures with their new crayons, they would use just one color because they had never before had a whole box of crayons to use as they pleased.

Operation Iraqi Friendship was born out of the enjoyment experienced by Erica, Tim, Bailey and Brad when they sent care packages to soldiers and Airmen deployed to support Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Just after Christmas, the care packages for American troops transformed into friendship-building donations for Iraqi schoolchildren. 

Ms. Reese raised the potential of the project when she asked the superintendent of central schools in Okaloosa County, Dr. Robert McEachern, if the kids could distribute flyers through the seven schools in Niceville and Valparaiso.  With the approval of Dr. McEachern and each of the schools’ principals, flyers were soon going home with each of the nearly 5,700 students in the schools.

The flyers succeeded in motivating area students and their parents to donate school items for the Iraqi schoolhouse.  To gather money for materials and mailing, several Niceville kids stood in front of area retailers to collect cash donations.

When the Iraqi children first opened their personalized bags, they most certainly could not have known how much work had gone into their assembly.  With the money they collected, the kids and Ms. Reese purchased bright, cheerful material that they sewed into tote bags. 

They then filled the bags with a precise assortment of school and personal supplies, with the added touch of gender-specific toys.

While all the kids received items such as crayons, paper, glue, scissors and some candy, the girls were all given beanie babies or dolls and the boys received matchbox cars and balls.  They all received kids’ toothbrushes and toothpaste.

While the project has already impacted the Iraqi students, it’s not over yet.  Now Ms. Reese and the kids are gathering shoes because they learned that 80 percent of the Iraqi kids were without.  They are also collecting baby clothes and other personal goods.

The kids who spearheaded the operation seem to have learned some valuable lessons from their philanthropy.

“We really learned how much we take for granted here,” Tim said.

“It was a fun thing to do, just knowing how much we helped some little kids,” Brad added.

As Erica implied, they all hope that the Iraqi students will understand the operation’s primary purpose.

To make their message clear, the Niceville kids colorfully decorated each one of the 200 note pads with one word – friends.

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