Soldier In Iraq

Meg Bragg's sixth-grade classroom at Marcus Whitman Middle School took on the look of a gift shop Thursday morning, with students filling about 120 beach buckets with treats for American soldiers and children in Iraq.In the course of an hour, 34 students from this Ontario County school filled the buckets with items such as toiletries, books and nonperishable food for soldiers in Iraq, along with toys for the children. The students worked in eight teams, and when a bucket was packed — usually topped with a small stuffed animal — they took it into the corridor for wrapping. A letter of appreciation from a student was stuffed into each bucket. "We're helping out the troops and telling them thanks," said McKenzie Griffin, 11, of Gorham, Ontario County. Other students shared McKenzie's enthusiasm and sense of satisfaction in preparing these buckets for shipment to the Iraqi city of Fallujah. A recent visit to the school by Marine Master Sgt. James Allen, who is a cousin of a teacher's assistant at Marcus Whitman, made the students especially eager to include gifts for Iraqi children.

"He said, 'The kids have nothing, and the soldiers like to hand stuff out,'" said Amy Lee, 12, of the town of Seneca.

Bragg had her two sixth-grade social studies classes undertake the project, which she calls "Friends in Fallujah ... Helping Us Help Others," as a project to fulfill the students' community service requirement.Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad, had been the site of fierce fighting between the U.S. military and Iraqi insurgents in 2004. Bragg was put in touch with the Marine chaplain in Fallujah, Glenn Orris. He e-mailed a list of items that the soldiers wanted, including toys to hand out to children. Christopher Trottier, another soldier based in Iraq whose mother is a teacher's assistant at Marcus Whitman, provided guidance to the students via e-mail. The students raised about $1,500 for their project, much of it from pledges they lined up for a student walk-a-thon. About $600 was set aside for shipping the buckets, which will be sent to Fallujah in large boxes next week. Four seniors from Canandaigua Academy volunteered Thursday pack the buckets at Marcus Whitman. Each of the eight teams had been given $100 to buy items for the buckets at the Dollar Tree store in Canandaigua. The students were told that, in making purchases, they should come as close as possible without exceeding the $100 they had to spend. One team came within 2 cents of spending the entire $100. "It was awesome. The kids opened up their hearts to give the soldiers as much as they could," said Bragg.