It was a beautiful thing ... on Wednesday about 40 volunteers from all parts of Southern California and over 50 Marines worked side by side to prepare for shipment the goods Spirit of America had donated for the Marines coming deployment to Iraq. The items will be given to Iraqis as gifts of friendship from the American people. The goal is to help the Iraqi people and to build better relations between Americans and Iraqis.

Remember: this was just the first phase of our support for the 1st Marine Division. New donations will go to purchase goods that will go over on planes with the Marines in February and March.

More details on everything can be found with these links: How much money we raised and how it was spent Media coverage of the SoA/Marines event The message of Friendship Background on the Marines request More photos

You can read about the Pendleton event here: San Diego Union North County Times NBC San Diego

We also had coverage on more than 50 news programs around the country — from San Diego and Los Angeles to Austin, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Nashville, Orlando and San Francisco. We'll get some video up soon. The place was loaded with TV cameras. Apparently, there was some curiosity about what volunteers and Marines dealing with 2 tons of Frisbees would look like.

The day was also covered by area bloggers of renown: Armed Liberal, LT Smash, Da Goddess, and Gerard Van der Leun of American Digest.

We kicked off our support for the 1st Marine Division on January 6th. So, everything you see and read here came together in 14 days. Pretty amazing for an all-volunteer operation that almost no one had heard of before that time (no where near as amazing as the things the Marines do in Iraq as a matter of routine, though). In two weeks the American people donated over $57,000 which we used to purchase 2 tons (15,000) frisbees imprinted with "Friendship" in Arabic and English, 4 tons of school supplies that went to create 10,000 school supply kits (each with a box of 12 pencils, box of 12 pens, set of colored markers and a wirebound notebook that went into a tote bag) and 3 tons of medical supplies (including stethoscopes, opthalmoscopes, blood pressure cuffs and a load of consumables — bandages, etc).

EVERY dollar donated toward this request goes to purchase items that will end up - via the U.S. Marines - in the hands of the Iraqi people as gifts of friendship. There is no "leakage." There are no "administrative fees" deducted. You can read an accounting to date.

Coming Soon: my "Ode to the Blogosphere" and tribute to Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, Armed Liberal, Bill Whittle, Hugh Hewitt, Steven Den Beste, Cori Dauber, LT Smash, Roger Simon and more ... !

Here are some photos. And, even more photos are here and here (courtesy of Da Goddess).