Two nonprofit organizations presented the 1st Infantry Division with checks on Friday totaling more than $60,000 for families, just in time for the holidays.

The money, from the Society of the First Infantry Division and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, will be distributed to 392 families in the 1st Infantry Division and 37 families of division soldiers wounded in Iraq who are now in the United States for medical treatment, according to Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste in remarks at the division’s holiday reception on Friday. Batiste was on rest and recuperation leave from Iraq and attended the reception Friday in Würzburg.

“This is great,” Batiste said. “There is no place I’d rather be right now (than) with the great families of Task Force Victory who have been supporting soldiers down in Iraq for the last 11 or 12 months.

“(The donations will) help them make ends meet. In the holiday season, there are lots of demands on the pocketbook, and families definitely are appreciative of this money to make it all happen during the Christmas.”

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