Gary Sinise - An Appreciation

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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BTW, if you’re thinking of shopping for some supplies, here’s their instructions from the web site:

You have to pay the shipping to their warehouse in Kansas city, at which point Fed Ex will do everything else and take it to Iraq for free, where it will be distributed by the U.S. military.

This whole package won’t cost much more than $20, and it will give a kid in Iraq the supplies he or she needs for an entire school year.

By standardizing the kit, it makes it easier to process, pass customs, and gives the schools a standardized material list they can use to plan classroom activities.

The organization is trying to involve local schools, clubs, and other groups. They prefer kits to be shipped six at a time if posssible, to simplify packing and processing.

Another organization (and the one my family sent a bunch of stuff to) is Operation Give, started by a U.S. military soldier (actually, someone who is an interrogator in the military). If you don’t want to put together the ‘standard kits’ that Sinise’s organization is looking for, Operation Give will accept just about anything Iraqi children could use. Toys, sporting goods, school supplies, etc. Don’t send anything that needs batteries or that breaks easily. Better toys would be things like Lego, soccer balls, baseball gloves and balls, etc. Again, Fed Ex is shipping the stuff to Iraq for free.

Needless to say, do not send religious or political material. If you’ve got a child that has grown out of a bunch of toys and clothes, why not pack them up and send them? They’re probably just rotting in the basement anyway. I figured solar calculators would be a big help, so after we packed our box I stopped at Office Depot and bought a handful of them and threw them in the box. They’re only about six bucks each.

And if you have a child, you might want to enclose a picture and have the child write a letter in friendship. It’s good for the children in both countries, and good for the relationship between Iraq and the world.

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I worked at the Operation Give warehouse back when it was in Maryland, and these items were what we threw away most often:

Soiled, stained or smelly clothing (no one, not even penniless Iraqi peasants, wants your junk!)

Barbie dolls (sexualized dolls are offensive to Muslim parents)

Aggressive or violent toys; toy guns can actually endanger children’s lives. What do you think an Occupation soldier will think when a small Iraqi boy jumps out and points a realistic-looking pistol at him?

Religious paraphenalia (the Iraqis appreciate help, not a book about the Love of Jesustm written in a language they can’t even read)

Radios and toys that only run with batteries (these people can’t afford shoes for their children, much less double-A batteries! And radios in the Middle East run on different wavelengths, American radios are useless)

Medicine (most Iraqis can’t read English, and we didn’t want children mistaking them for bottles of candy and devouring the whole thing)

Pillowcases and bedsheets (their beds are different sizes and require different sheets)

Some donations were just puzzling, like toys that spoke English. We sent them anyway, since the kids would get a kick out of the toy long after the battery died, but one can only imagine what a 5-year-old Iraqi kid who speaks only Arabic will think of a My Little Pony that exorts him to “Follow his heart”.

Items that were generally acceptable included:

Clean clothing in decent condition (we even sent some Hooters shirts since, according to Matt, our Operation Give supervisor, “They won’t know what it says.”)

Stuffed animals and dolls whose clothing displays no bare arms, legs, bellies, or cleavage.

Musical instruments (we sent several boxes full of drums, trumpets, and the like, and I fully expect to see some Iraqi Grammy Award winners in about 15 years)

School and art supplies.

Hard candy that won’t melt in the hot weather of Iraq.

Shoes, coats, socks, underwear (which we only accepted if it was in unopened
original packaging). We even sent a little dinosaur costume that was obviously someone’s Halloween outfit, figuring some Iraqi boy would think it was neat.

Sports supplies, especially balls, inflated or deflated.

Most of the donations were not just someone’s random junk they couldn’t sell at a lawn sale – we received quality stuff, including some Ralph Lauren shirts unopened (!!!), several ladies evening gowns, and some adorable baby clothing that appeared to be handknitted. Also, many of the packages came with letters for the soldiers who would be distributing the goods – we took them out and put them in a box by themselves to hand out separately.

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This is all ending up very civil, not to mention non-controversial. (Which is a good thing.)
I’m moving the thread to MPSIMS.

TVeblen