Chief Wiggles’ Operation Give Blog

I would like to personally thank all of you who have helped in making 2005 a banner year for Operation Give. There were many obstacles and many hurdles to overcome but 2005 was also filled with many miraculous events and magical occurrences. It was a great year. Thousands of sincere, charitable people stepped forward with pure acts of kindness, donating wonderful items and money in order to bring happiness into the lives of thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan children.

Our US military men and women, with the help of numerous Iraqi and Afghanistan people, were able to deliver with love your generous gifts. Through these acts of kindness, made possible by all of you, they were able to build bridges of love and understanding. Consequently, our men and women in the military were able to make great strides towards our goal of winning the hearts and minds of the people they are fighting for. Through love and kindness we can all help build these bridges spanning misunderstandings, distrust, and hatred, that permeates the society of that part of the world. Through love we will find a way and the answers to our problems.

Unfortunately, there are those who chose hatred as their answer and desire all free men and women to be in bondage or killed. There are evil forces that fight against democratic free rule, wanting only for their own power and position. For this reason we must continue to fight back to insure our own freedom. We must not back down or retreat to the safety of our own distant homes, for they are coming and they are relentless. We can only hope that the opportunity to let our true selves shine through will arise, enabling the people of these countries to see who we really are. We ask that all of you do what you can to help us now win the peace through your own acts of love and kindness.

Help us win the peace. Give to Operation Give

Thanks
Chief Wiggles
Doing it the wiggles way.

As I am forced to juggle my ever increasingly complicated life, with a full time day job as a Worldwide Account Manager at FedEx, my life as a citizen soldier in the National Guard, and a part time volunteer life as the president of Operation Give, I have realized how necessary it is for me to stay focused on what is really important. At times I feel that I am too close to the day to day operations of Operation Give to see the bigger picture that requires my attention. It is easy to become distracted by the urgent demands that pull me to and fro. I want so much to fulfill every need that might come to my attention but I also realize how my time, my energy, and my resources are all limited commodities.

In order for Operation Give to survive it is essential that I focus on what is most important. It is mandatory that I have a clear vision of what we are all about and that I be able to communicate this vision to others who also desire the perpetuation of Operation Give. The vision must be unique, meaningful, and of value to those involved. The vision must establish our purpose for being, which will guide us along this road map we are creating, preventing us from being distracted by the multiplicity of needs surrounding us.

We have had a magical beginning and fantastic year and a half history, during which all of us have accomplished so many amazing things. There are so many heart wrenching stories of love, kindness, generosity, and of giving. All over the country grass root programs have sprung up to collect school supplies, toys, medical supplies, hygiene items, clothes, shoes, and much more, which have all been sent to Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. It is amazing how, through your own initiative and through the goodness of FedEx, so many of you have been able to participate in making this all possible.

But the need is still great. There are men and women in our armed forces in many countries through out the world who, each and every day, while in harms way, attempt to make a difference in the lives of the people they come in contact with or endeavor to change an attitude about what Americans are really all about. There are children in crisis in these same countries that have been neglected and are in great need. There is a chance for these children to grow up with more understanding and less hatred. These children represent the future of our world. If we are going to make a difference it is going to have to be with them.

I recently spent a couple of hours with a small group of key individuals, attempting to crystallize our vision into a few words, so that all of us involved might stay on track. I would like to communicate this to all of you who still desire to take part in this effort and realize that there is still much to be done.

“Operation Give exists to provide what is needed most to children in crisis in places where our armed forces are engaged.”

We exist to assist the military in winning the hearts and minds of the people they come in contact with, through reaching out to help the children in need. We provide what is needed most to those that need it most.

And we would like all of you to participate in providing our loved ones in the military and the children in those lands with the critical resources and supplies needed to affect a change and make a difference in their lives. All of this helps those who gather up the critical items, those that give them out, and those that receive them.

Please don’t hesitate to start up your own grass roots drive to participate in this great cause. Support our armed forces through your efforts to show love not hatred and through giving not taking.

We have many new ideas and programs which we will be launching in the near future, that I am sure you will want to get involved in also.

Have a great day
Chief Wiggles
Doing it the wiggles way.

Operation Give Update

1. I just spent the last few days in Washington D.C. attending the National Spinal Cord Injury Association Convention. I was invited because of their desire to do a number of joint projects in Iraq with us. There are over 400 new cases of spinal cord injury that have been identified in Baghdad alone since the war began. We have a program called “I Can Be”, that we want to put a plan together on. A number of key governmental agencies were represented at the convention and I found the time spend there very valuable.

2. My book, entitled “Saving Babylon, the heart of an army interrogator in Iraq”, about my time in Iraq will be going to press by the first of June. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be going to Operation Give. We are hoping that sales of the book will spark added interest in Operation Give.

3. We continue to receive items at the warehouse and continue to ship containers to Iraq and Afghanistan. We will have another container ready to go next week. We are still receiving several calls a day from groups all over the country who have their own grass roots drives going on to gather up much needed resources.

4. Bridgepoint Systems continues to provide us with warehouse space to consolidate all the shipments we are receiving and to make them ready for containerization. Bridgepoint Systems has stated that they will probably need their warehouse space back sometime in August.

5. The Knights Templar group is very interested in supporting and sponsoring Operation Give and desires to take this nationally to all the priers around the country. We are in the middle of such discussions. There will be many opportunities to take advantage of with this organization. I have been knighted and I am now a knight in the Knights Templar organization.

6. We are in the middle of designing a logo and corporate identity for Operation Give.

7. Dr. Eaman is back in Baghdad now, after a trip to Washington D.C., to discuss a number of issues and to bring a child to the US for treatment. At her request, we need to have our own warehouse in Baghdad to all our supplies, with one or two full time employees, such as a guard and a manager of distribution.

8. We have made several new military contact in Iraq and Afghanistan to further facilitate the distribution of our supplies and resources to the military. This will facilitate the more expeditious distribution of these itmes to the military.

9. Gary Becker and I are meeting on June 6th in Florida with retired VP of Marketing for IBM, with a panel of his peers to discuss Operation Give’s future expansion.

10. We are in the process of combining the Chief Wiggles.com and the Operation Give.org websites into one. Scott Evensen is also moving ahead with the Donationstore.com web site, so that we might begin to solicit donations for targeted corporations of their excess, overstock inventory items. Scott is also working on putting up the “Saving Babylon” book website.

11. We have been busy forming alliances with a number of other NPO’s, such as Stars for Stripes and America Supports You as a result of Elaine efforts, Operation Smiles as a result of Reed Hancock’s efforts, etc.

12. Elain has been very helpful and instrumental in promoting the cause of Operation Give to various schools and organizations. We also have wrist bands from China that we will be giving away with a $2.00 donation.

13. We are also working with a company called PolarStar, a for-profit organization, which desires to give 10% of all their profits to Operation Give. They desire to sponsor our efforts in Iraq which is their main theater of operation.

14. Clorox became one of our corporate sponsors by donating $10,000 and having their own school supply drive amongst their employees. They were able to donate over 100 boxes of items.

15. Read Hancock has become a member of our board of directors. Reed has already been very instrumental in promoting this cause to the Knights Templar group and other organizations. He is also arranging for us to go on a nationally syndicated radio talk show.

16. We have two part time employees at the warehouse to sort, repackage, and load containers.

That is about it for now. More to come later.
This should give you all a feel for what we are doing currently.

Thanks for all your help.
Chief Wiggles

UPDATE 02/07/05: Two containers arrived today, were loaded and left our warehouse headed to Sri Lanka.

Evening everyone, it is Friday, February 04, 2005. I thought I would give the Chief a break and write an update for everyone on what is happening and how much progress has been made. If you don’t want to read it all, you can click here for pictures of the warehouse and here for video of the work being done there.(quicktime download here) You get to see a pallet being loaded, wrapped and put into place ready for shipment. An added extra bonus of the guys eating some lunch too!

Let me just say, “WOW!” Everyone has come through far more than we could have imagined! Our warehouse is jammed full of items to be sent to Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re so glad that everyone has been taking advantage of the free shipping donated by FedEx.

Here is a shot of the warehouse.

I’m sure the next question is, “When are these items leaving?”

Quick answer, the first cargo container was supposed to be at our warehouse today. We were there; we had cameras waiting, but no container. Calling the company, we found out there is a dearth of cargo containers. Even with our begging and pleading, we have been delayed until Monday. Come Monday though, our first container to Sri Lanka will arrive at our warehouse, be loaded, and start its very long journey. The next container, Tuesday, then Wednesday, and so forth. Hopefully, the warehouse will go from jam-packed to pleasantly full in no time.

So how big are these containers?

We’ve had some questions about the size of the containers, so I thought I would take a minute and try to explain them. We are using 40’ containers. When the container arrives, we load it with pallets filled with boxes. If we use a paper box, one that holds 10 reams of paper, as a typical sized box, we can get 54 of them on a pallet. We can put 20 pallets in the container and then soft load about 100-200 more boxes. So, each container will hold about 1200 boxes. That’s quite a bit of stuff! That is thousands of kits, blankets, clothing items, school materials, medical supplies and other things.

I also thought I would show you a good example of what is in some of these boxes. Some group sent 55 boxes, for free via FedEx, which arrived today. The boxes were well organized, all about the size mentioned above and each labeled with what was inside and the number of items inside. Things like, 5 Child’s Health Kit Girls, 2 Medical Kits, or School Supplies 10 notebooks, 3 crayon boxes, 50 rulers, etc. Wonderfully organized and packed. Normally, we open all boxes, sort items, repack and label the boxes. With this group, after only opening a few, we were able to just load them onto a pallet. Below are a couple of pictures as examples. If you recognize this as your groups work, send me an email!

I should also take the time here to give a huge shout out to Reverend Sensing. He was the one that gave the suggestions for the kits and the link for other kits. Checking with those we are helping, they were ecstatic with what was being included in the kits and other than a few specific requests for items we were able to provide, they felt the didn’t need to ask for anything else. Donald comes through again!

So here we are, probably 3 containers headed for Sri Lanka, one to Afghanistan and one to Iraq, all this next week. All of this thanks to your generosity, your willingness to help those you have never seen or met, your caring.

Suggestions for Soldiers

As we continue this effort, I thought I would give some suggestions for other things. Of course, you can always look at our list here for items to send to Iraqi/Afghan children, but I thought I would put up a list of things for soldiers as well. People ask us if we ship to the soldiers and the answer is a HUGE YES! This whole thing was started to support the soldiers! So, with that in mind, here are some suggestions, I’m sure the Chief will have more to add. Be warned, some of these items aren’t cheap and many soldiers would be too embarrassed to ask for these items, but be assured they are wanted.

Things the Soldiers Want:

Laptop Computers (They use these to communicate back home, write their own blogs, surf the net and other stuff)
MP3 players
Portable Flash Drives (Many computers are shared and they need something small to store their stuff on, the portable flash drives are perfect for this)
Digital Cameras
Oakley Sunglasses (Want a soldier to be a friend for life? Send him/her a pair of Oakleys)
CDs
DVDs
Portable DVD players
Phone cards (No excuse not to phone home when you have a card)
Send more suggestions to me.

No Nos

Finally, some things NOT to send. Believe me; we’ve received all of these items at least once!

Ripped clothing
Ripped shoes
Stained clothing
Clothing covered in animal hair
Broken toys
Games missing pieces
Puzzles missing pieces
Stained underwear (nasty)
Used toothbrushes (I’m sorry, but this is worse than the stained underwear)
Food past the pull date
Items whose pull date was in the 90s!
Items whose pull date was in the 80s!!!

Big Thanks to all of you!

We do appreciate all of your generosity and 99.99% of you have sent items that are wonderful and useful. There are just a few who I wonder about.

I also hope that you all realize that we do our best to get pictures and the like, but it isn’t easy. The soldiers are doing the distribution, many times in dangerous situations. We are just happy to be able to give them these items for their use and for the use of the Iraqi citizens and while we ask for pictures, if they can’t provide them, we understand fully. If there are any out there that have been disappointed because of the lack of communication or if something wasn’t delivered swiftly we do apologize.

I’ll leave off here. Again, thanks for all the support and I hope you will continue to support us in the future.

Plunge

Some final shots.

A quick update on the recent relief efforts.

Next week, we will be sending about 5 cargo containers. Yes, 5! 2-3 to Sri Lanka, one to Afghanistan and one to Iraq!

Also, a big thumbs up to the guys at JibJab, their linking to us has brought more than we can ever say thank you for.

Since their last link, we have received over $5000 in donations, and literally hundreds of people and organizations sending donations.

I realize the list below is far from complete, but here are some of the organized drives that have started just in the past couple of weeks.

Drives:

Rosepine High School
Rosepine, LA

BSA Troop 140
California

Various LDS (mormon) congregations

University of Georgia
Indian Cultural Exchange

Spelman Chapel A.M.E.’s Young People’s Dept.
Kent, OH

Iowa State University
Sri Lankan Students Organization
Ames, IA

Connecticut Elementary

CandyRific, LLC
Louisville, KY

8th Grade Class
St. Anthony de Padua School
South Bend, IN

Landon Gregson
Eagle Scout Project

Christ Church Community
Metamora, Il

Thanks everyone!