Helping the troops
Area bank spearheads effort

By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 10:46 AM PST

Amber Meyer, who works at Intermountain Community Bank in Ontario, loads donated items into a collection box for the ‘Christmas for the Troops’ program.

ONTARIO — Members of the administrative department at the Ontario branch of Intermountain Community Bank are putting the finishing touches on a collection effort designed to send Christmas stockings and boxes to U.S. troops in Afghanistan near the middle of this month.

Donations are still being accepted at the bank, 98 S. Oregon St., Ontario.

“We’re getting ready to finish it up,” Amber Meyer, administrative assistant, said. “We’ve got to get the shipment out by Nov. 13 so it gets there by Christmas. The earlier we ship it out the cheaper it is.”

This is the fourth year of the bank’s “Christmas for the Troops” effort, and it started when Meyer’s brother, Shannon Bottom, first went to Iraq. Notified about sending him things early, Meyer said that gave her the thought that other soldiers might like something from home, and she brought the idea up at work. Everybody said, “Let’s do it,” and they plan to keep going every year, Meyer said.

A donation box is set up in the bank’s foyer, and the group conducts fund-raisers to help purchase items.

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The shipments are mainly Christmas stockings filled with foods such as hard candies, powdered drinks, trail mix, Chex mix, jerky canned nuts, plus DVD’s or video-games (new or used), battery-operated fans, batteries, phone cards, card games — anything that can fit in a stocking. No pork products, please. They also send items in bulk because they are packaged that way and they cannot be separated, and sometimes donated items do not fit the stockings.

The troops often pass out toys and candy they receive to the children of the country they are in.

“We’re hoping to send 100 stockings this year,” Meyer said.

In the previous three years they have sent more than 400 stockings.

The shipments go to someone people at the bank know, and the first two years was Meyer’s brother in Iraq, who played Santa passing out stocking to members in his unit. With stockings left over, he was still passing them out as late as May to new troops as they joined the unit, Meyer said.

The program is not just intended for people in conflict areas but for any troops away from home. Other things that have been done is including cards with messages from children to the troops.

“We hope we can continue this and pull the community in,” Meyer said. “I’ve gotten several cards (back from troops who have received stockings). Everyone has appreciated them.”