by Judith Radford
On Friday, February 6, the Army National Guard completed an important mission at the Grafton Elementary School. Since October of 2008, students at the Grafton school have been collecting items to send to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Originally the items were going to be picked up in December; however, a snowy winter intervened, and the kids had a snow day. Due to prior commitments, the Guard soldiers couldn’t return until after the holidays were over.
Nothing dampened the spirits of these little elves and, as promised, two
soldiers from the New York Army National Guard’s 42nd Special Troop Battalion, based in Troy, arrived at precisely 9 am in their Humvee to pick up the packages.
In the gymnasium, Spc. Hollingsworth introduced herself and SSgt. Fred Addiss and thanked all the children for their wonderful gifts. SSgt. Addiss then talked to the children about the meaning of being a hero. He said that everyone knows fire fighters, policemen and soldiers are heroes but did they know that teachers, parents and even children can be heroes, too? At the end of SSgt. Addiss’s talk, all of the kids stood up and saluted one another, their teachers and parents and thanked these wonderful soldiers for coming to their school. Children from Mrs. Brown’s second grade class donned their warm coats, well at least most of them, to help Specialist Hollister and SSgt. Addiss load the Humvee with 40 boxes of over 290 items such as soap, candy, snacks, etc. Three special children from Mrs. Brown’s class, Alyssa, Klarissa and Katlyn Hasbrouck, along with their Mom/Aunt, Jennifer Hasbrouck, helped organize the project.