Beanie Babies donated by children at North Hills Christian School in Salisbury have found young friends in Iraq.
Soldiers in Company D, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division handed out the squeezeable dolls to children from the Oman and Nassir schools in al Buaytha.
Students at the private school on West Innes Street collected 400 Beanie Babies, and the dolls found their way into the hands of Iraqi school children in March.
Students in kindergarten and grades 1-3 at North Hills worked on Project Beanie Baby in February.”It is important that we do anything we can to make the children happy and help them because the children are the future,” Capt. Joseph Inge, a native of Richmond, Va., and commander of Company D, said.
First Lt. Kirk Steiner, Company D fire support officer, gave credit to his mother, who teaches kindergarten at North Hills, for organizing the event.
“Most of these children have only seen their country during a time of war. It was great to be able to give them a small gift and see the smiles on their faces,” said Steiner, a native of Salisbury.