Group making gifts for troops in Iraq Stockings with treats to arrive for Christmas

CALAIS – Santa Claus may be months away, but Thursday a group of Washington County people were busy stuffing stockings for 110 men and women who are thousands of miles from home.

The plan is this: On Dec. 25, members of the U.S. Army’s Battery, 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery, will open colored Christmas stockings filled with everything from toothbrushes to candy.

Maureen Pike organized the project after her sister Denise Tozier asked for her help. Pike’s brother-in-law Scott Tozier is in Baghdad.

Scott Tozier, whose U.S. base is at Fort Riley in Kansas, is from Bangor. Two other soldiers in the battalion also are from Maine, one from Bangor and the other from southern Maine.

Pike said she was overwhelmed by the community’s generosity.

On Thursday, the staff at Dr. Laurie Churchill’s office was stuffing the red and green stockings they had made just weeks before.

“There must have been 10 of us here that night,” Pike said of the sewing brigade. “We had two ironing boards and irons going and four sewing machines,” she said with a chuckle. “We had two of the nurse practitioners cutting out the stockings themselves. We had four or five kids running the drawstrings through the top.”

Carmen’s Restaurant donated pizzas, and it took the stitchers just two hours to assemble the stockings. State Rep. Anne Perry, D-Calais, who is one of the nurse practitioners who helped cut the stockings out, donated the material.

And there is an international connection to the project.

Although Canada did not join the United States in the war, a St. Stephen, New Brunswick, candy company was willing to do its part. Ganong Brothers Ltd. donated 110 bags of its newest peppermint candy.

St. Stephen resident Carol Ann Nicholson picked up the boxes of candy at the candy factory a few weeks ago, and with the cooperation of U.S. Customs officers at the Ferry Point Bridge, delivered them to Churchill’s office.

“I was talking to my sister the other night, and she said she can’t believe how much the hometowns are pitching in,” she said.

Dentists in Calais and Baileyville donated toothbrushes, toothpaste and dental floss.

The Calais Motor Inn donated shampoo, conditioner and soap.

Cash donations came from Wal-Mart, the Calais Rotary Club and from residents Joanne Thompson and Joan Miller.

Pike said they used the Wal-Mart donation to buy paper and envelopes.

“The [rest of the] money donations are going to go toward shipping,” Pike said.