By By KEVIN SCOTT CUTLER
Lifestyles & Features Editor
A local church is working to insure Marines from Camp Lejeune won’t be forgotten this holiday season.
Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church in Washington has organized a “Christmas in Afghanistan” drive and is collecting items to be sent overseas in care packages.
“We’ll be sending things to 250 Marines in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines who have little or no family support and who are away from home,” said Bill Cochran, a church member who, with his wife Betty, started the project.
Cochran, who formerly served in Japan with the Army, knows first hand how much the packages mean.
“Right before we shipped out from Seattle, the American Red Cross gave us gifts at Christmas,” Cochran recalled of his military stint. “That kind of stuck with me all these years.”
Earlier this year, Cochran read that East Carolina Bank was sponsoring a company of soldiers serving in Iraq. He knew his church could do the same thing.
“That planted the seed, and we approached the vestry at Saint Peter’s with the idea this fall,” Cochran said. “We’ve been collecting money and gifts ever since.”
The church put together a list of gift ideas and distributed it among the congregation. Suggested items include such toiletries as deodorant, soap, shampoo, foot powder, lotions and wet wipes; food items include hot chocolate packets, sunflower seeds, dried fruit, cheese and cracker packs, protein bars, dry soups and hard candies.
To help fill the long hours, Saint Peter’s is adding playing cards, sports equipment, games, Frisbees and paperback books to the care packages. Personal notes of encouragement and thanks have been written by children in the Sunday school classes and by other members of the congregation, and those will be packed into the packages, as well.
Fifty boxes, each containing five care packages, are being prepared for shipping, and Saint Peter’s hopes to collect enough items to send 60 boxes overseas. The boxes will be placed on the altar and blessed during the morning church service next Sunday, and then the congregation will carry the parcels to a postal truck waiting outside. A Marine gunnery sergeant will be on hand to express appreciation to the congregation.
George Tarantini, men’s soccer coach at North Carolina State University, learned of the project from Cochran and sent three new soccer balls and a dozen N.C. State soccer shirts to be added to the packages.
Support has come from outside Saint Peter’s congregation, too, Cochran said.
“People have been most generous, and even people who are not members of this church have heard about it and brought things in,” he said. “Betty will be out shopping for things, and people who know what we are doing have stopped her and given her money for this.”
“It has brought about a lot of enthusiasm and a sense of compassion for the military,” Betty Cochran said. “The bishop says there are more military installations in the diocese of eastern North Carolina than anywhere else in the country.”
Father Kevin Johnson, rector at Saint Peter’s, is a former member of the military and he said he was the recipient of such care packages.
“I remember how it felt to get stuff in the mail. It’s good to know that people who don’t know you are thinking about you and praying for you,” Johnson said. “The great thing is, this has connected with so many people on deeper levels than we had anticipated. It’s been wonderful to watch people get involved in different ways.”
Bill Cochran told the Daily News that he has learned that many of the soldiers who will receive the packages are being deployed to Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. That area is a hot spot in the war, he said.
The church continues to accept donations for the project. Monetary donations can be mailed to Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 985, Washington, N.C. 27889.
The season of giving might not end with Christmas, according to Betty Cochran.
“If we can’t send everything at Christmas, we’ll send boxes at Easter,” she said.