Could you?

Yes, you could. Diane did.

When Angel Diane in Georgia sent out an email early this year to kick-off a Holiday support project for 20,000 deployed troops, my first reaction was, “Cool!” This was quickly followed by “OMG!”

You see, just a couple months before receiving Diane’s email, I’d successfully corralled a group of friends and mutual acquaintances to help send a last minute holiday delivery to a navy ship that had deployed to the Pacific shortly before Thanksgiving. I’ll share more on that in another post… I mention my 2006 holiday project for the ship because it made me well aware of how much was involved in sending goody bags to 260 sailors. Doing the same for 20,000 troops would be what geeks like me call an increase of two orders of magnitude. In other words, Diane was planning to collect and bundle up not just 10 times as many goodies as I had, but another TEN TIMES that.

Diane never seemed to get overwhelmed by it all and corralled so much awesome support and so many donations. Remember the socks? Go back and look at the whole list. And many thanks to those who read my posts about her efforts sent notes and cards to be included!

After 8 months of collecting, counting, organizing, and planning, Diane and crew packed up the 20,000 goody bags. Yep, all 20,000 – no shortfall here! They had some extra-industrious volunteers as well as cheerleading from a well-known bovine.

150 volunteers got the job done in 9 hours. I’m sorry that I was too far away to help -- I know that they had to be tired by the end, but I bet they had FUN.

It’s efforts like these that make being a part of Soldiers’ Angels so special. You can be a part of something BIG in a very tangible way. Alone, 20,000 would have been overwhelming. With friends, neighbors, and Angels worldwide (yep, some Aussies sent some cards in too!) you can collaborate to pull off a big one.

Still it takes people like Diane to step up and see it through,

So a big WAY COOL! to Diane, hubby Steve, Georgia Angels, and the residents of Douglasville.

Ya’ll done good.