Santa Doesn't Always Wear A Red Suit
Story by SPC Charles Ames, Photos by SSG Kenneth Rosario - Posted Jan, 2000
While much attention is given the inner-city youth around the holidays, the men and women of your National Guard have found and addressed the largely forgotten children spread out across the rural expanses of southwest Washington. This is the account of a Recruiter’s vision that ‘mobilized’ an armory and a city.
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Over this past holiday season hundreds of children received gifts brought to the armory of Service Battery, 2-146th Field Artillery headquartered in Centralia, WA.
SFC Steve Miller is the Recruiting and Retention NCO for the unit and the genesis of the project. "I’ve thought about this for over a year. It’s based on a program we used to do in my active Army unit called the "Adopt-A-Family, Orphanage, or School" program. So here we revisited the theory of adopting a family or some type of agency to give what we could back to our community."
SSG Kenneth Rosario, the indefatigable Training NCO for SVC Battery, was one of the main coordinators of the project, and seems to be in command of a vast network of information and resources.
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SSG Rosario holds down a full-time Guard position and works a hectic schedule that includes lots of extra hours, to keep things moving for his unit between drills. So what possessed SSG Rosario to add another monumental task that now threatens to become a yearly routine? He gives much thought, then says, "You feel bad for the kids who don’t have a Christmas. A lot of times, it’s not the parent’s fault."
A great deal of research preceded the project to identify the needs of the community. The real shortage seemed to be enough toys. "SSG Rosario really helped with coordination of the members of the unit," enabling SFC Miller to concentrate on coordination’s with various agencies. He estimates that the Guardsmen of his battery contributed over 200 hours of volunteer time to the project.
SSG Rosario looks at the big picture. "We listened to a lot of people say, 'We don’t know what the National Guard does for the community.' " To counter this claim, he offers the activity of one Guardsman in particular, SPC Wayne Monroe. "He spent several unpaid days, here, bagging, sorting, separating… He only does it for 'God and country.' " SPC Monroe’s enthusiasm was contagious. Rather than begrudge him the time he has spent at the unit, his fiance chipped in to help.
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SSG Rosario downplays the scope of the undertaking. "It started out as a light-hearted contest, like maybe we could beat the Marines in their annual 'Toys for Tots' campaign, but then we got really serious. We used the big drill floor to arrange the toys by age groups, and by use. Then the parents picked them up between December 21st and 24th.
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Initially, the unit intended to accept toys only on the weekends but then began to receive numerous donations throughout the week as well.
Merchants heard about the donations and commenced nothing less than a bidding war to out-do each other. Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Fred Meyer, and Target were some of the stores contributing items; one store gave in excess of $5000 of merchandise! Several service organizations offered to help out as well.
SFC Miller is quick to point out that many are to be especially thanked, like the C.O., 1LT Russell Chambers, and his wife, Mandy; and SPC Hamilton who is not even a member of the this particular unit, yet gave monumental assistance.
As the project wrapped up, the unit’s goal of 500 sponsored families had nearly been reached. Each family received about half-a-dozen brand new items, ranging from stocking-stuffers to Nintendo 64s and bicycles.
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SFC Miller and SSG Rosario ponder the future of an endeavor on this scale. Says Miller, "I’d be surprised if this doesn’t start a long tradition. I think it’s really been rewarding to the Guardsmen as well as the community. There’s no doubt it helped instill the Christmas spirit into a lot of Guardsmen."
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