A Special Veteran's Day Experience

There is no greater pleasure than making a difference, and the students and I at Lynden High School had an amazing opportunity to tag team with a good friend of mine, Tanis, to collect shoes to send overseas. Operation Shoebox started because Tanis' fiance, Skye, was deployed in June for a year in Afghanistan, wanting to help do something from home, she came up with the idea to send shoes and other supplies over so the troops could hand things out to the children who needed them most.  Not only does this benefit the children, but the soldiers take a lot of pride being able to make a difference in other people's lives and breaks up their long and stressful days. 
Normally we do drives and fundraisers and never get to see first hand what an impact it makes, because of the connection, we were able to get a video clip, and about 12 pictures of the kids receiving shoes.  We not only collected a 140 pairs of shoes, but also $250 to cover the shipping.  We all had such a great time running this drive, and packaging up and sending off the shoes! Nice work LHS FBLA!

Me and some of the FBLA students students who helped box shoes...

What a sweet little girl....



This picture gets me every time, it just breaks my heart to see all of those children in so much need, just for a pair of shoes. 

This was the video played at our school Veteran's Day Assembly.  The FBLA shoebox segment is the last minute of this video, I am waiting to have just our part on a separate clip, so this will have to do for now.  It really is unbelievable the sacrifices made by our troops.   



Thank you Sgt. Ortiz, and all of the soldiers fighting for us in Afghanistan, we are glad that we could make a small contribution, and we appreciate the time you took to give us the video and pictures. GOD BLESS!