Chief Wiggles’ Operation Give Blog

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