During Josey’s first deployment, instead of exchanging Christmas gifts, my husband and I agreed to outfit our son’s platoon (forty Marines) each with a Christmas care package. Researching the internet for the best items to ship, a list was given to everyone I saw or knew along with a request for funds for shipping.
The task seemed insurmountable. But enough came in for two hundred Marines and we were just getting started. Operation Santa has grown to become the largest Christmas drive for the troops in the Midwest. Just three years later, by 2008, we shipped more than thirty thousand Christmas stockings to troops.
I serve as full-time volunteer for our beloved troops and veterans putting in fourteen-hour days working the telephone, Internet, and public speaking to raise awareness and funds. Operation Santa (www.operationsanta.info) is sponsored by Central Illinois Proud Families of Marines, a 501c3 organization which I co-founded, and for which I serve as president.
School children through senior citizens are involved with sewing stockings and writing personal notes. Businesses, civic clubs, veterans groups, families, individuals from all walks of life turn out to stuff the stockings. Our local Post Office comes to our location to pick up the boxes by the truckloads. Even postal workers stay after their shifts, unpaid, to help bring Christmas to the troops.
Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois presented Operation Santa with the Home Front Hero Award. I personally have received the Commandant of the Marine Corps Quality Citizenship Recognition Award along with the Challenge Coin. Our local WEEK-TV, an NBC affiliate, named me one of twenty-five Women in Leadership in 2006 for Operation Santa efforts.
This has been the most terrifying, yet purposeful chapter of my life to date. However I intend to live the rest of my life serving our veteran community in some way for two reasons: in gratitude for their sacrifice and service and secondly, to pass on the torch of public service to younger generations. Freedom isn’t free!
Lord, show me opportunities to serve you stemming from the circumstances in which you have placed me.
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)