A nine-hour time difference, thousands of miles and daunting environmental differences melted away as students at Steadley Elementary in Carthage spoke with soldiers near the town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq at a special assembly Friday morning.
The soldiers called via the Internet to thank Steadley students for their contributions of shoes, paper, pencils, toys, bandages and hundreds of other items to an elementary school in Iraq back in March.
Lt. Col. Clinton Moyer and Sgt. Christy Bukowski, both with the 287 Sustainment Brigade, based in southern Iraq, spoke with Steadley students and answered questions for almost a half an hour about conditions in Iraq and whether the donations the kids gave made a difference.
“They were very excited,” Moyer told the students. “They were really excited to get the pencils, which are pretty scarce here. A lot of times when a child gets a pencil, he’ll break it in half and share it with his brother or sister. Sometimes you’ll have three or four kids sharing the same pencil. Most of these kids had never seen a Crayola either. The Crayolas were a big hit.”
The school received a certificate from the soldiers expressing their appreciation for the students’ donations and an American flag that flew over the headquarters of the 287th Sustainment Brigade on April 7.
Also present for the ceremony were Roene Blankenship, Carthage, who helped organize the collection and arranged for it to be shipped to Iraq in March; Royce and Patty Nelson, Carthage, parents of Lonnie Nelson, a soldier in the 287th who helped organize things on the Iraqi side; Capt. Ed Bailey, commander of the 287th until he was injured and had to be sent home in February, State Sen. Gary Nodler and others.
Bailey said he saw first hand the affects of donations like the one from Steadley students on the people in Iraq.
“It makes a huge difference for the students and even with the parents over there,” Bailey said. “The parents see this stuff coming in and a lot of what’s reported is not necessarily true as far as for how they view of America. The majority of Iraqis, they love us and we do a lot of stuff with the schools and we deliver a lot of supplies. The kids really love it, especially when they see a box of soccer balls. It makes a huge difference to those kids.”
