Tyler

By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer

Thanks to the efforts of Hubbard Middle School students, more than 200 soldiers serving in Iraq will open up shoeboxes full of treats and reminders of home just in time for the Christmas holiday.

Students from Hubbard's International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) were busy packing up the shoeboxes on Thursday, preparing to mail them in time for the holidays.

"I think it's really cool because it's a new way to show the troops we love them," Mallorie Farmer, an eighth-grader helping pack up the boxes, said. "They do so much for us ... we need to show our support for them."

This is the third year the MYP team has organized the effort in which the entire student body participates, donating supplies and goodies to pack into shoeboxes and ship off to soldiers.

Open up one of these shoeboxes and you'll find just about anything -- a toothbrush, a pack of Kool-Aid powder, playing cards, popcorn, beef jerky, maybe even a stuffed animal or a DVD.

There's a different mix of items in each of the more than 200 shoeboxes that the students have prepared.

The school also had a fundraiser to raise money for the cost of shipping the boxes, charging 10 cents for paper links that students could buy to make "spirit chains."

Grade levels competed to see which could raise the most money.

Long red, white and blue "spirit chains" hang from the ceiling in the front hallways of Hubbard -- showing off $1,700 worth of "spirit" that will pay the cost of shipping.

Most of the boxes will be delivered to the 150 troops in the unit of a Hubbard teacher's son stationed in Iraq. The other boxes will be divided among two other units.

Karen McHam, MYP coordinator at Hubbard, said the project has grown over the past three years.

The first year, the school put together about 75 boxes of goods, and last year students collected about 124. This year, they collected enough items to fill more than 200 boxes.

"I think as the kids do it, they get excited, and they like to know that they're involved in letting the soldiers know that we support them, we care about them»," Ms. McHam said.

The project began because students saw there was a need, she said.

"When they get into eighth grade, they're excited about doing it," Ms. McHam said of the project. "They get excited because they get to actually get involved, and they feel like they're a part of it. (In MYP), we want them to know about global issues that are going on, and we want them to know how they can help the community."

Ms. McHam said these boxes should arrive before Christmas. Last year's boxes arrived to soldiers on Christmas Eve.

She said they heard back from soldiers that they were "so excited" about the presents.

"It made their day," she said.

Hubbard Middle School eighth- graders Morgan Chance (left) and Jaina Giddens fill boxes with shoe boxes containing socks, pens, granola bars, CD's and other sundries headed for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Staff Photo By Jaime R. Carrero)