The Providence Journal/Bob Breidenbach
Volunteers spent Saturday collecting donations & filling about 350 care packages for RI service men and women who will be serving abroad over the holidays at the 10th annual Operation Holiday Cheer in Warwick Saturday. Rhode Island-themed goodies, like boxes of Autocrat coffee syrup, will be shipped to R.I. natives serving overseas.View the photo gallery.
WARWICK, R.I. -- When Daniel Thurston was fighting in the Vietnam War, he would sometimes get boxes of his mother's home-baked chocolate chip cookies in the mail.
"I wouldn't share them," said Thurston, of Warwick, a Navy Seabee who was attached to a Marine unit. "I would savor every bite, because I knew that when I finished the last one, there was a chance that I wouldn't get any more."
Four decades later, the Apponaug native who built bridges and bases in Vietnam still remembers how good it felt to be able to eat one of "Ma's cookies" even though he was in the far reaches of a foreign country.
On Saturday, Thurston helped make sure that Rhode Islanders who are currently serving overseas with the armed services will get their own taste of home.He and more than 100 other volunteers helped collect and sort donations for care packages that will be filled with such Rhode Island staples as Autocrat coffee syrup, Del's Lemonade mixture and Dunkin' Donuts coffee beans.
They were taking part in "Operation Holiday Cheer," a joint effort between the office of the lieutenant governor and the Rhode Island National Guard to send out 350 boxes of gifts to local troops in time for Christmas.