SO VERY GENEROUS

When Spc. Kate Medina meets children in Baghdad, they already know her name.

“Medina, Medina,” they say, tugging at her battle dress uniform and pointing to their new clothes.

It all began with one mass e-mail Medina sent in October. Months later, the donated clothes are still coming in from all over the United States and Germany...

Kristi Jens received Medina’s e-mail on Dec. 3 from a friend who forwarded it to her and decided to take action in the Kaiserslautern military community. She set up clothing drives at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center chapel and at Ramstein Air Base’s Community Center in late February.

“I started immediately to gather things together because I have a soft spot for poor children,” Jens said.

Paying $15 for a pair of shoes is too much for some families in war-torn Iraq, Medina said...

“They wouldn’t have shoes, or [they had] shoes without soles,” Medina said. “They looked like they had just gone to the Salvation Army and put something on.”

It was these encounters with local children that prompted Medina to enlist the help of friends and family. In an e-mail, she described the children’s needs and asked for recipients of the message to donate clothing and blankets.

Little did she know that her e-mail would generate such a response.