County Collects Items for Fort Hood Soldiers

County Collects Items for Fort Hood Soldiers

Written by Staff Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Williamson County officials, along with several Williamson County cities, have adopted troops from the 4th Infantry Division Aviation Brigade 1/4 Aviation under Lt. Col. Brian D. Bennett. Williamson County Commissioner Valerie Covey, Precinct 3, has started collecting donated items for the Fort Hood soldiers to use while deployed.

The donation deadline is April 24. The items will then be shipped with the Fort Hood soldiers’ belongings when they deploy to Iraq.

Donations are on a strictly volunteer basis. Monetary donations, which will be used to provide activities for the soldiers' families who stay here at home, are also being accepted. Checks should be made payable to “Williamson County” with “Adopt a Troop” in the memo line and dropped off or mailed to Commissioner Valerie Covey, 3010 Williams Drive, Ste. 153, Georgetown, TX 78628.

For more information, contact Terri Countess or Rachel Rull in Commissioner Covey’s office at 943-3370.

Collection boxes for donations can be found at the following locations:

• Inner Loop Annex, 301 S.E. Inner Loop, Georgetown – Human Resources
• Central Maintenance Facility, 3151 S. E. Inner Loop, Georgetown – Unified Road System
• EMS Headquarters, 303 MLK, Georgetown – John Sneed’s Office
• Courthouse, 710 S. Main Street, Georgetown – Public Information Office
• Justice Center, 405 MLK, Georgetown – Boxes located in the basement, first and second floors
• Tax Assessor/Collector Offices –
  904 S. Main St., Georgetown
  211 Commerce Cove, Round Rock
  350 Discovery Blvd, Cedar Park
  412 Vance St., Taylor

Soldiers have specifically requested the following items:

• Write a note. Send a card or picture. If you have kids, have them write a note or draw a picture; if you have a group of kids, make a long card out of shelf paper and have them all write notes or draw pictures.
• Blank cards (holiday, thank you, birthday, etc.) so the soldiers can use them to send home to their families.
• Handy wipes. Soldiers frequently find themselves deployed at checkpoints in Iraqi neighborhoods for three to seven days before they can rotate back to a larger and more adequately resourced Forward Operating Base (FOB).
• Newspapers and paperback books
• Magazines (for men and women)
• Batteries - AAA, AA, and D sizes
• Puzzles and puzzle books
• Boot socks
• Eye drops – non-prescription, moisturizing
• Board games and playing cards
• Audio cassettes, CDs, VCR/DVD movies (American standard) – even if slightly used
• PSP2, XBox360, MP3 Players and electronic games to be shared
• Sports items like baseball caps, baseballs, footballs, volleyballs, soccer balls, etc. These would be used by soldiers — or given as gifts from America to Iraqi kids in Baghdad’s neighborhoods.
• Small stuffed animals
• School supplies — pencils, pens, notebooks and paper, watercolors, construction paper, scissors, chalk, note pads, erasers, pencil bags, metric rulers and similar items. But no crayons — they melt.