MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Volunteering station members brought Operation Comfort and Care to a close here Jan. 17 after a weeklong effort to collect donations from community members for deployed Iwakuni Marines and sailors serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rebecca Strean, the Marine Corps Family Team Building station readiness and deployment support trainer, headed and organized the program here designed to collect items for care packages intended to ease the strain and show support for forward-deployed service members.
“This is important because it helps boost morale for our service members who are out there,” said Strean. “This is just a great morale boost for them, just to open it up and see all the support that they are getting from home and to know that even though they are individual augmentees, they are still being remembered, and we are still supporting them.”
Strean said she knows, from having her husband deployed, just how hard it can be for forward-deployed Marines and sailors to obtain certain things and how much the care packages really help.
The program, which started Jan. 11, received various donations from community members in the form of children’s letters, drawings, toothbrushes, toothpastes, MP3 players and other items.
Strean said she is extremely grateful to everyone who supported Operation Comfort and Care with their donations and to the volunteering station members who came out to collect the items in the cold weather.
Approximately 45 station members volunteered their time to stand outside the Marine Corps Exchange and Commissary here to collect donations.
Operation Comfort and Care volunteers included station dependents, service members without the experience of being deployed and some who have deployed.
“I’ve been deployed,” said Sgt. Gerald Vasquez, an Operation Comfort and Care volunteer. “I know how it feels when you don’t have all the stuff that you actually need.”
Vasquez said he believed his participation in the program was important because he is a Marine and feels it’s important for Marines in garrison to support their fellow Marines who are forward deployed.
“If I can get one person to donate something, I’ve done my job,” said Vasquez. “If I get more than that, like ten or twenty, even better. It will feel good that at least I’m a part of something. Yes, I’m part of the Marine Corps, but I’m doing a little extra to help out. I mean they need volunteers, why not help out?”
During the lastest drive, Operation Comfort and Care successfully raised enough donations for 90 care packages.