Army 1st Sgt. Erika Gholar of the 587th Signal Company, 52nd Signal Battalion moves a food collection box to a more visible spot at the commissary on Friday at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart. The battalion has launched a drive for soldiers who could use some additional food for their Christmas dinner. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
STUTTGART, Germany — Holiday collections have begun throughout Europe, including a new food drive by soldiers from the Vaihingen-based 52nd Signal Battalion.
“If we can’t do it everyday, at least we can do it through the holidays to help out these communities,” said 1st Sgt. Erika Gholar of Prentiss, Miss., and the 587th Signal Company.
Gholar said the food drive started within her company but interest spread.
“We just wanted to take it to the community,” Gholar said. “We have one young soldier with five dependents. We figured if we have [soldiers like that], there are others in the community who are the same way.”
In Stuttgart, food collection boxes have been placed at the commissaries at Patch, Kelley and Robinson barracks and at the Shoppette at Panzer Casern, as well as at other locations on Patch. Gholar stressed that donated goods must be non-perishable, such as canned goods and dry foods.
This weekend, the soldiers collected goods at the Patch movie theater in exchange for half-price movie tickets.
Other communities have begun extra efforts for the holidays.
For example, soldiers from Vilseck, who travel several times per year to donate food and clothing to a small Polish town, will be joined next weekend by soldiers from nearby Grafenwöhr.
Closer to home, Sgt. 1st Class Todd Clayman, a chaplain assistant at Vilseck, said many young people who join the Army are already married with children. A private’s or corporal’s salary doesn’t stretch very far during the holidays, he said.
“And if they’re younger kids, you have stay-at-home moms who don’t work,” Clayman said.
So Vilseck, like other military communities in Europe, is holding angel-tree programs to collect gifts for children and handing out vouchers for holiday hams and turkeys.
People seem more aware of charity during the holidays, such as inviting people for holiday dinners, according to Chaplain (Col.) Eric Holstrom, chief of the department of pastoral services at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
At Landstuhl, however, the gifts are usually of clothes for troops who were wounded in action and flown to Landstuhl with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
“The [giving] comes from this side of the Atlantic but also from back home,” Holstrom said. “They care about our warriors, our soldiers from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.”
The food drive at Stuttgart, Gholar said, is to supplement the voucher program and help fill out the Christmas dinner table.
She hoped it wouldn’t be the last time troops in Stuttgart pulled together during the holidays.
“We want the command groups who come here after us to make it carry it on,” Gholar said. “We want to make it an annual theme and take care of our community here.”
