I received this from my sister today and I think many of you would be interested to participate as well as to see what little things others are doing to support the troops in Iraq. Whether you are a sew or if you wanted to contribute fabric, I am sure the Gator project would appreciate the thought.

Kathy


A scout project

Greetings from St Albans, VT! My name is Mary Skelton and I am a former Girl Scout, and a Marine Mom. When my son, Greg, a 1st Lt in the Marines serving in Iraq, called home on Thanksgiving, he asked me to send him a "gator", or a neck warmer. I didn't realize it was cold there, now. He said it was down in the 30's at night. Riding around in the back of trucks was very uncomfortable for them. So I made 16 gators out of stretchy fleece for him and his team. It was easy, and fun! So I asked many friends (and a few
strangers) to help. Word spread, and many people around the country have gotten involved. So far, we have made and sent 3400 gators! The soldiers are very appreciative - I've received lots of Thank You emails.



Many more gators are needed. Several Girl Scout councils, in VT and MN, have jumped at the chance to help. I hope your council will, too.
Gators are very easy to make -- Three seams, three minutes, and about a dollar in fleece. Directions are on my website, www.thegatorproject.org.
You will find a link there to email everyone in your email address book. If people send gators directly to soldiers they know in the Middle East, I would request that they email me with the number of gators they send, so I can keep the website updated! If you need addresses to send them to, please email me.



As I'm typing this, I just had an email from Greg, who said that the local children near his unit would welcome donations of outgrown clothing - boys, girls, winter, summer, any sizes. If you have a way of letting your troops'
families know of this, perhaps that's another way to perform community service. (No American flag t-shirts, or other obvious insignia.) Again, I can provide addresses to service people who are able to distribute clothing.



Please help keep our soldiers warm now. With everything they have to put up with over there, being cold shouldn't be one of them! A few gators will really help! Thank you very much, in advance.

Might be an idea to specify making them out of green, beige, tan or cammoflage colours. I'm not sure they'd want to be sitting up top of the truck with a bright yellow neck warmer.