Bear Nenno is my hero!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Not to mention the hero of every kid in my sons’ class at school.

Let me explain- a while back, Bear Nenno started a thread asking for toys, soccer balls, etc, for the kids he encountered in Iraq while on patrol. You can find the old thread here. Lots of us sent things, and I think it was a great idea.

Then, it gave me an idea of my own. My boys are in a blended elementary classroom at school (1st through 3rd graders) and every year they do a couple of charity projects. One is the St. Jude’s Math-a-thon, and the other is Pennies for Kindness, in which they raise funds in change (mostly pennies, natch) and then donate the funds to a charity chosen by the class. In past years, they have supported entrepreneurs through Kiva, donated animals through Heifer International and other stuff. This year, I suggested that they make the children of Iraq their project, through Bear. They loved the idea.

To his credit, Bear Nenno was immediately on board, and we began the process by introducing him to the kids with a letter and a bunch of pictures showing who he is, what he does, and where he does it, as well as some of the kids he encounters in the villages he passes through. The kids were fascinated and maybe a bit shocked, especially when they saw the soccer “fields” where the kids played and the houses they lived in.

The class raised over $125 and we went to work, trying to decide between practical things the Iraqi children might need and fun things they might not otherwise get. We decided on mini spiral notebooks with pens, mini coloring books with crayons, mini flashlight key chains, knitted hackey sack kick balls, plastic sunglasses, sets of dominoes in plastic cases, and assorted very girly jewelry-type stuff (jelly bracelets, necklaces, beaded bracelets, etc) in little beaded mesh bags. The kids wrote letters to include in the boxes plus some class pictures, and then we sent off the boxes.

Amazingly, they all arrived safely in Iraq! :wink: Bear handed things out over the course of a few days and even got pictures so our kids could see the children with their goodies. It was the most awesome class project ever!!!

So, I am starting this thread to let you all know that Bear Nenno is a REAL hero, at least in my book.

Deb

PS- Bear, if you drop in here, I couldn’t link to any of the pictures- can you?

PPS- Bear, if you get any leave in SoCal this school year, I hope you will come to Dana Point, CA and visit! The kids put on a great snack time! :cool:

2

Sounds like a story that Colbert would be interested in. I’d look into how to contact his show.

3

We sent a box o’ stuff to Bear awhile ago, and just today were remarking that we hadn’t heard from him. How long does it take for him to get stuff, do you know?

4

It depends- I send all my stuff USPS Priority Mail in the flat rate box. It takes a week to three weeks, sometimes.

He moves around quite a bit, so it might be sitting somewhere, waiting for him. Also, I think they only get mail call once a week or so…

5

Shoot- I was trying again to post pictures, but I’m just not having any luck… I’ll try from home…

6

That sounds like an excellent project! I’m looking forward to seeing the pictures.

7

Wow. I’m touched. Thank you.

If anyone knows of a good file hosting site, please let me know. I uploaded the .pdfs that I sent to EJsGirl to share with the students. If you want to check them out, go to www.mediafire.com
Use “tfe_normandy@hotmail.com” as your login, and 123654 as your password. Click on the MyFiles tab… and then good luck downloading those things. That website is kinda annoying to work with, but it’s the best I could find. (Okay, I didn’t look very hard. But I kept having upload errors on all the other ones.)

That was the Beanies, right? I still have that box on the shelf. I believe it took about a week and a half to get to me. I meant to send you a PM when I got it. Don’t know why I didn’t. I must have gotten distracted. I promise I wont forget to send you pictures, though, when I hand them out.

Things are much slower now than they were when I first got here. And unfortunately, my current job does not have me going out into the towns everyday. I can still arrange to get out on my own when I am not too busy, though.

Also, EJsGirl, I got another package from you yesterday. Haven’t opened it yet. I will take it and all of Ginger and weirddave’s Beanies. I’ll post back here after I’ve done that. I’m thinking it will be in the next two weeks or so…

I’m so glad the kids liked it. My biggest concern was that I wouldn’t make it out before the school year ended, or that they would be dissappointed from the lack of pictures or something. I am really so glad they enjoyed the project.

One thing I did learn from that project: It’s much easier to hand out things one at a time to random kids, than to approach a group of kids with a ton of stuff. LOL!! I’m sure any parent could have clued me in on that one! Man, what was I thinking?!

EASY WAY
HARD WAY!

8

Bear you are so great! I love the picture of the little boy with the soccer ball!

God bless you and stay safe.

Ellen

9

This is my favorite thread (and charity/service idea), like, evar.

Oh, and take care of yourself, B_N!

10

Bear_Nenno, you are my new hero. Thank you so much for what you are doing.

Will you PM me your mailing address so I can send some stuff for the kids as well?

Thanks.

11

Ooops. The box I got yesterday was from fisha. Sorry if that confused ya. fisha has been doing a great job of keeping this thing going and handling requests and PMs from Dopers for me!

Thanks again, fisha.

12

Hey Bear, we have another bunch of stuff to send. Should we, or are you good?

13

Hell, he was my hero years ago. This guy knows how to build up the karma!
And since the picture link in the linked thread is busted, here’s what I was talking about.

14

If you have the stuff, go ahead and send it. I have enough time between now and redeployment (15 Month tour n all) to get it out there.

Wow! I had completely forgotten about that. How neat. And a funny thread too!

15

Yeah, a bit! I thought months was too long, even for the USPS! :wink:

I wasn’t kidding about the SoCal tour stop, Bear. Email me if you’ll be anywhere near us. The class would be floored and happy to see you!

16

No problem, Bear. Been really busy lately, but never too busy to coordinate.

17

The soccer ball is a particularly appropriate gift. I was surprised to find out when Australia played Iraq that the Iraqi team includes Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds. If only politicians were so inclusive.