Today’s Star-Ledger has a look at the volunteer work of Red Bank’s Ronnie Micciulla, who heads up a program that aims to get Christmas gifts to the children of U.S. military personnel serving overseas, but mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The program is called Project Little Soldier, and its under the aegis of American Recreational Military Services, which Micciulla started in her kitchen four years ago to help military personnel and their families.
The Ledger reports that word of the Christmas-gift project has spread to soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen stationed around the world.
“It’s been … overwhelming,” Micciulla, the executive director, said yesterday, pausing to find the right word. “Troops and their families from all over found out about us, put in a request for a toy. And right now, we don’t have enough for everyone.”
Micciulla’s organization has received more than 7,000 requests for toys and has so far has collected about 3,500. It is actively looking for donations of new toys, gift certificates or cash to bridge the gap.
“We’re still going,” she said. “We have to. How do you say no to a soldier? Especially if it’s for their child.”
Micciulla, 58, who has frequently volunteered her services to military charities, and a few friends launched ARMS in 2003 from her kitchen table. The original aim was to send care packages to deployed troops from New Jersey and New York. But the organization’s reach grew thanks to its Web site.
From January through November each year, the group’s focus is sending care packages to deployed troops, usually 600 boxes every six weeks, or more than 87 tons so far.
The group’s volunteers, who now number 375, turn their attention in December to the toy drive.
Delivering the toys already collected in time for Christmas promises to be a major logistics hurdle this year — and race against the clock.
Micciulla figures the final deadline for donations that will reach the recipient in time for the holiday is Wednesday, Dec. 19. Some of the goods will be mailed and others will be delivered by ARMS volunteers. The volunteers have rented a truck and already have deliveries scheduled later this week to Fort Bragg, N.C., and Fort Stewart.
Organizing the toys already collected and preparing them for shipment has been a marathon event, with Micciulla and dozens of volunteers working long hours in a drafty garage at the New Jersey Army National Guard armory in Toms River.
Many of Micciulla’s fellow volunteers are there every day. Tom Zabrorowski, 76, and his brother, Len, 71, are fixtures.
“No place else I’d really want to be,” said Tom Zabrorowski, who served in the National Guard for 41 years. “I can’t wear the uniform any more, so I do this. I’m helping the troops and their kids.”
For more information about how to make a donation to Operation Little Soldier, go to http://www.supportarms.org/index.htm or call American Recreational Military Services (ARMS) at 732-890-4914. Donations can be made online or mailed to ARMS, 64 Harding Road, Red Bank, New Jersey 07701.
