Students and adults at Landisville Intermediate Center listen to remarks from Sgt. Jarred Atkins, in camouflage uniform, and 1st Sgt. Brian McDermott, far right, Friday morning.
Sgt. Jarred Atkins, left, and 1st Sgt. Brian McDermott take questions from students at Landisville Intermediate Center Friday morning.
Hempfield School District sixth-graders had welcomed some service people for a special Veterans Day program last month.
So everyone thought it would be great "for the students to continue with that … and maybe do something nice for the troops," explained "room parent" Lori Sites.
On Friday, the 156 sixth-graders in six classes at Landisville Intermediate Center did just that.
Instead of giving each other $5 presents in a gift-exchange program, the 11- and 12-year-olds agreed to donate to a local outreach that sends care packages to soldiers who are far away and in harm's way, this holiday season.
The students on Friday welcomed two soldiers, who emphasized just how special it is to get a care package from the U.S.
And they welcomed Linda Morrow, the Columbia woman who formed a group called "Mums For Moms" five years ago, after her son Mark was deployed to Iraq.
He's back safe and sound, but Morrow's group, which began by bringing flowers to mothers of service people in the war zone, kept her efforts going and branched out through the care packages.
Morrow will use the $5 from each of the students, which adds up to more than $750, to send everything from homemade cookies and candy bars to travel-size toothpaste and toothbrushes, mouthwash, deodorant, Band-Aids, tissues and the like to the troops.
The class visitors Friday were Sgt. Jarred Atkins, an Iraq veteran and 2003 Hempfield High graduate, and 1st Sgt. Brian McDermott, a veteran as well and also a Hempfield district physical education teacher.
As an added twist, Atkins is a former student of McDermott's.
According to Morrow, McDermott told the students, "You're off to a great start" by being so willing to help others.
Morrow said that "having the soldiers there made it more real … and the kids really took to them.
"It was a very emotional time. These kids just have no idea how much this means to me, that they care this much."
It was a great experience for a sixth-grader "who has never encountered a soldier who has been in harm's way," said Sites, who is in teacher Debbie Wrightson's classroom and found out about Morrow's group on the Internet.
Mums for Moms then was invited to the Landisville school.
Morrow's group, in just its third year of sending care packages, will have sent more than 400 of them by the start of the new year.
The soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan "need to know that we appreciate what they do," Morrow added.
Morrow appreciates the help she has gotten from her longtime friend and cousin Joyce Miller, also of Columbia, and some companies also have contributed to the cause.
The Landisville sixth-graders and their teachers — Wrightson, Clare Daher, Jane Kilefner, Jennifer Cassel, Jon Chronister and Josh Diffenbach — aren't stopping there.
They're now planning to make Christmas cards to send to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For more information about Mums for Moms, call Morrow at 285-7675 or visit www.mumsformomslancasterpa.com.