The students at the Bucks IU at Samuel Everitt in Middletown stuffed more than 700 stockings to send to troops overseas.
MIDDLETOWN — The students of the Bucks Intermediate Unit at Samuel Everitt recently stuffed holiday stockings to send to troops stationed overseas. Now in its third year, the “Stockings for Soldiers” campaign has grown from just a few dozen stockings in year one to 764 this year.
The students, all of whom have special needs, worked with their teachers and support staff in an assembly line. Each student was assigned a task that best allowed them to learn and practice skills, from sorting donated items to making holiday cards to filling the stockings. The stockings were stuffed with a variety of items, such as snacks and candy, personal hygiene products, holiday cards, stationary items and books. In addition to the 764 stockings, 16 boxes of even more goodies and supplies also were packaged up for shipping out to the troops.
The majority of the boxes are being sent to the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a group of Marines who are currently deployed in classified locations working with ongoing operations. Boxes also are sent to Marines with the 3rd Battalion in Japan, and airmen with the 380 Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron in the United Arab Emirates.
Giant stores in Fairless Hills, Langhorne, Morrisville, Southampton and Yardley, Redner’s in Levittown, and Sam’s Club in Langhorne donated goods for the effort.
The Bucks County Intermediate Unit Education Foundation provided a $600 grant for the purchase of the stockings, and Fore the Troops, a nonprofit charitable organization that raises money to support philanthropic organization focused on programs and support of military personnel and their families, provided $2,500 to cover the cost of shipping. Let’s Bake Cookie Co. of Bensalem, Kiddie Academy in Feasterville, and the Bucks County Intermediate Unit in Doylestown served as drop-off locations, and students at Samuel Everitt and the IU HOPE program in the New Hope-Solebury School District collected the items.
Reprinted from the Bucks County Courier Times — http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/ news/20181211/bucks-iu-students-stuff-stockings-for-deployed-soldiers