Operation Education helps Iraqi kids

Jennie Burrett
2nd BCT PAO


Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (LI) are participating in Operation Education while deployed to Iraq, changing the country from the very bottom – the children.
The program was started by 1st BCT during their deployment in 2005, said Sue Paschal, wife of 1st BCT commander Col. David Paschal. The program collects school supplies and organizes them into kits which are sent to Iraq for Soldiers to hand to the children in their area of operation.
“Since its beginning, we’ve probably sent between 1,800 and 2,000 school supply kits which have been given to Iraqi school children,” said Carrie Fulgium, wife of Maj. Richard Fulgium, a military transition team chief in 1st BCT.
Many schools in Iraq have no sewage system, desks, fans or school supplies – often not even chalk for the blackboards. About 200 schools have benefitted from the Operation Education program.
Each kit contains a pair of blunt-end scissors, a 12-inch ruler with metric markings, 12 new pencils with erasers, a small pencil sharpener, a large eraser, a box of colored pencils (crayons melt in the heat), a package of notebook paper, a composition book or a one-subject spiral notebook, three folders with inside pockets, and a zippered pencil bag.
Children seem very grateful for the program, Soldiers said. That goes both ways.
“The Soldiers really seem to enjoy it,” Fulgium said. “That was one of the reason the program was started – the Soldiers couldn’t get enough supplies to hand out, and they said that they love interacting with the kids this way.”
When 1st BCT came back from deployment in 2006, they passed the program to 2nd BCT, which was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom 06-08. Now the program has been passed back to 1st BCT for their ongoing deployment.
Operation Education is a modeled on Operation Iraqi Children, which was founded by actor Gary Sinise and author Laura Hillenbrand. OIC has distributed about 200,000 school supply kits since it began in 2004.
Each kit contains a pair of blunt-end scissors, a 12-inch ruler with metric markings, 12 new pencils with erasers, a small pencil sharpener, a large eraser, a box of colored pencils (crayons melt in the heat), a package of notebook paper, a composition book or a one-subject spiral notebook, three folders with inside pockets, and a zippered pencil bag.
The Fort Drum-area schools are taking raising donations for supplies, said Miri MacNeilly, wife of 1st BCT planning officer Maj. Matthew MacNeilly. Once the schools have the supplies, then MacNeilly and Fulgium then go pick them up and ship them to the soldiers in Iraq.
“We’ve been working with a Utica business, Max Cowen’s Student Stores,” said Fulgium. “People can go to the Web site and fill out their information, and the store prepares and mails a kit for them.
“Or they can go to our local drop-off point, which is School Daze at 902 Arsenal Street, in Watertown. People can purchase items there, or buy them elsewhere and drop them off at School Daze.”
Operation Education has a tremendous effect, Fulgium said. A Soldier involved with the project told her that one little Iraqi boy swam across the river that separated his home from the school three times to bring kits for his two younger siblings as well as himself.
“It costs between $10 and $15 to make a kit,” said Fulgium, noting that the cost is almost negligible in the United States. “We spend more than that at a fast-food restaurant, for one family. But it means so much to them just to have basic school supplies.”
Donations are always welcome, Fulgium said. Kits can be purchased for $10 through the Web at http://www.maxcowen.com/operationeducation/
For more information about Operation Education, contact Carrie Fulgium at carriefulgium@yahoo.com or Miri MacNeilly at mmtmacneilly@yahoo.com.