By JESSA PEASE / Staff Writer

PELHAM— The spirit of Christmas will soon be delivered to a battalion of soldiers in Egypt in the form of red and green stockings bursting with goodies.

The stockings, filled with Oreos, propel powders, candies, beef jerky and more, were donated by the fifth grade students at Valley Intermediate School. Together the students collected more than 300 items to send to the soldiers.

“I just cannot tell you how much I appreciate everyone who donated items to the sent to the soldiers,” said fifth grade teacher Michelle Dobrinski. “It was an amazing turn out. It was by far more than I ever expected and I am just so incredibly thankful to everyone.”

One of the fifth grade moms, Trina Davis, approached Dobrinski with the idea. Davis’s husband is the lieutenant colonel of a battalion stationed in Egypt. He commands about 300 soldiers and said many received few, if any, care packages during their deployment.

Davis asked Dobrinski if she would be interested in collecting items to send to the battalion, offering to pay the cost of shipping, and Dobrinski got the entire fifth-grade involved.

“We just put it out there in our newsletters that we send out every week, asking for specific items,” she said. “Lt. Col. Davis provided us a list of popular items that the soldiers really like to get: Caramel corn, games they like to play and very simple things like Oreo cookies.”

Slowly and steadily, Dobrinski said items starting coming in and suddenly they had 300 items. Together the students donated 17 large boxes of Oreos, 32 bags of Werther’s candies, 26 packages of beef jerky and more to the soldiers.

To properly package all the items in the spirit of the holidays, Dobrinski said they also asked for stockings. They received 75 stockings. Once all the items were separated, Dobrinski said they had the exact amount of items needed to make everything equal.

As of Dec. 3, the packages arrived at Tel Aviv and the soldiers will be able to pick them up once the border is open, which Dobrinski said should be in the next week or two.

The collection was so successful that Dobrinski said she hopes they can make this an annual event for the fifth grade students.

“It just goes to show you the type of amazing parents that we have in this community and we are so very, very fortunate that we have them and they support us in everything we do,” she said.