We are so proud of our kind students and staff for supporting our overseas troops this Christmas Season!
Mrs. Stoltz and her helpers recently boxed up 22 care packages, graciously donated by many of our classes! Teachers and their classes were asked to "Adopt a Soldier", an idea our teacher, Mrs. Jaclyn Stoltz, brought to life at our school. Her husband, Andy Stoltz, is currently serving a deployment in Iraq. She and her two young sons have not seen Andy since this past July. Mrs. Stoltz's hope was to have enough classes adopt every one of the soldiers on her husbands team. All of the soldiers are in the Illinois National Guard. With them being from Illinois, students have a common relation with the soldiers as well.
Very often, deployments have 100-200 soldiers. However, Andy and his team are on a specialized mission, having a small group of only 44 soldiers.
The idea for the program was that each soldier on Andy's team would be "assigned" to a class. The main hope was for the students to write cards and letters to the soldiers. Supplies and money donations were also collected throughout November.
Mrs. Stoltz was overwhelmed with all of the support and kindness given by students, teachers, and staff. Last week she was able to package the 22 boxes with the generous supplies donated, and mail them to Iraq in time to reach the soldiers for Christmas. There were even extra donations/supplies received that will be packaged and delivered in February. Special cards and letters were mailed to the soldiers as well, with the hope of sending cards out again several times throughout the year.
Monetary donations were also donated, exceeding well over $400. The money was used to buy Amazon gift cards for the soldiers.
Many thanks to Mrs. Stoltz for organizing this amazing fundraiser, and to everyone who supported our brave United States Military Members! Thank you to our soldiers for your selfless sacrifice to our Country!