Photo By Sgt. 1st Class James Lally | Service members from the Kabul Base Cluster sort and package donated items for...... read more read more
KABUL, Afghanistan — Service members from the Kabul Base Cluster sorted and packaged donated items for Operation Outreach Afghanistan on Camp Phoenix here May 26.
On Camp Phoenix, volunteers have been collecting donations for the organization. OOA is an organization located in Afghanistan made up of volunteers from the U.S. Military, International Security Assistance Force, NATO and several civilians that help Afghan children and families.
Army Lt. Col. George J. Harrington, executive officer, Task Force Yankee, Massachusetts Army National Guard, and chairman and president for OOA on Camp Phoenix said, “Task Force Yankee works in partnership with OOA within the Kabul Base Cluster to provide humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people. This important work facilitates the Commander’s counter insurgency philosophy. OOA is designed to facilitate donations from friends, family and others from the States, and repackage them into individual packets for distribution by coalition and Afghan security forces. By providing such basic needs as school supplies, Task Force Yankee and OOA help the Afghan people learn to better trust Coalition and Afghan forces. Ultimately this reduces the ability of the insurgency to influence the local population,” said Harrington.
Volunteers on Camp Phoenix hold meetings to collect, sort and distribute donations. One volunteer, Navy Lt. Denise L. Romeo, a Staff Judge Advocate with Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 posted a message on a social networking site asking for plastic bags for OOA. The bags are used to individually package school supplies for Afghan children. Romeo described her efforts to obtain donations for outreach saying, “I put up a post on Facebook asking for the plastic bags we use for school supplies and my family went out into the community and asked for donations.”
OOA provides assistance to the Afghan people in the form of non-perishable food, clothing, toys, school supplies and other household items. The majority of items are obtained via donations.
One of the organization’s goals is to empower the Afghan people through compassionate humanitarian assistance. For information on Operation Outreach go to http://opoutreach.org/
| Date Taken: | 05.26.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 05.27.2011 14:00 |
| Story ID: | 71215 |
| Location: | KABUL, AF |
| Web Views: | 296 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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