Iraqi Bundles of Love In the Mail

Once again I am in awe of what a few determined women can do when presented with the opportunity to contribute to the lives of people they will never know for projects they will never see.




On August 3 of this year, just a little over a month ago, a Major in the Army started posting on the Web about a project to send packages of sewing and knitting supplies to him for distribution to Iraqi women, for themselves or for their small businesses.





As of today he has received 500 of these packages and, in a short while, he will receive another nineteen (yes, 19!) from members of the Kingwood Area Quilt Guild.

Here's how this project blossomed here.

On last Thursday evening, after the monthly Guild meeting where one of the members mentioned this project , three of us started discussing the possibility of participating in the IBOL project. One of us voluteered to send out an e-mail to several others announcing a packing party set for this morning, the last day possible for mailing thiese packages before the Major returned to the U.S.. I know I passed it on to a few others and I gathered boxes and the right customs forms.





I get a lot of sewing and craft supplies given to me to redistirbute to others so I looked through them to find any appropriate items. I also had a trunk load of supplies from the Guild garage sale on Thursday night. With what was in my trunk, what others had left over from the garage sale in their trunks, what others brought to our packing party and other bits and pieces, here are the statistics of what we did with little prep but with great determination and a lot of sweat:

• Total number of packages packed and sent = 19


• Total weight of packages sent = 116 lb.


• Total cost of postage = $227.05


• Number of active packers = 5

Special thanks to the men at Starbucks who gave us money for postage, the woman in line at the post office who us $6.00 for postage in honor of her husband who had fought in Iraq, the incomparable Janetta and Lish who always come through on these projects; Marjory, Sue, Rebecca, Dee and Mary Jean for their cheerful spirits and willling hands; and the many others who unknowingly contributed to this project with their donations. An especially big thank you to the staff of the United States Postal Service offices on FM1960 and in Kingwood for being extremely helpful to us by giving us great advice on choosing the right boxes, customs forms and giving us great instructions on how to fill out those six part forms.

Congratulations IBOL Guy for a great project! I will be looking forward to seeing the final count.