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Humanitarian Aid Packing Party

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Susan Tracy
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  The staff of the Joint Task Force MED at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital came together for a joint mission of a different kind. Instead of packing wounds, they packed brown paper bags filled with clothes, toys and shoes for the Afghan people of the Parwan Province. 

Twenty volunteers gathered in the brightly decorated conference room around a long table packed with a wide variety of items donated by people in the U.S. A bag would be started at one end, something would be placed in it, and then the bag would be handed to the next person for the next item. 

Staff Sergeant Christopher Thompson, the non-commissioned-officer-in-charge of the hospital chapel described the bounty as "a hodgepodge of everything - it is toiletries, candy, stuffed animals, jackets and clothes - it's a plethora of multifaceted stuff that we try to get to the people." All the items are donated by people and organizations in the States that see what is going on in Afghanistan and want to make a difference in the lives of the troops and the local nationals. 

"A lot of the villages don't have a Wal-Mart or a K-mart or anything where they can actually go and pick up toiletries or children's clothes," said Sergeant. Thompson, a Nashville Tenn., native, "plus a lot of the time whenever we get them [patients] here into the hospital we have to cut them out of all their clothing. By getting toys or clothing we make it a little easier for them, plus it provides a little bit more for their villages that they wouldn't normally get." 

With the coming winter months, the temperatures in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan will average between minus eleven degrees and eighteen degrees Fahrenheit. According to Master Sergeant Charles Anderson, a reservist deployed from Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass., who runs another volunteer operation on base, the people desperately need shoes of all sizes, coats, hats and gloves. There is also a constant need for women's and men's items, baby clothes and toiletries. The children like soft stuffed animals, balls and candy. Because of cultural constraints, the hospital cannot give out stuffed animals in the shape of dogs or pigs or objects with skull and crossbones or religious symbols on them. If interested in donating, items can be shipped to: 

Task Force Med Chaplains Office
Re: Humanitarian Aid
APO AE 09354