Boardman students receive ‘thank you’ from soldiers overseas

BOARDMAN — Making ornaments to send to soldiers overseas as part of Operation Evergreen has been a Boardman Center Intermediate School tradition for years. And the effort is appreciated.

BCIS students delivered hundreds of letters and more than 200 handmade ornaments to Pioneer Trails Tree Farm in Poland to accompany all the fresh-cut Christmas trees they shipped to soldiers last month. BCIS Principal Randy Ebie recently received the following email response from one soldier:

My name is SSG Andrew Wakeman and I am currently deployed with the U.S. Army. I just wanted to let you know that we received the bag of Christmas ornaments your school sent. I am not sure which class or classes put these ornaments together but I wanted to say thank you. The ornaments were a great addition to our tree and really helped raise the spirits of our soldiers.

Can you please forward this email on to the class or classes that put these ornaments together? I've included some pictures of some of us decorating the tree.

Thank you again and Merry Christmas!

"This is such a great example for our kids — to make something to brighten the season for someone else is always a reward in itself. But to hear back from the soldiers is icing on the tree, so to speak," Ebie said in a news release.

For 25 years, Pioneer Trails Tree Farm has organized Operation Evergreen locally and sends fresh-cut trees and many of the trimmings — along with student letters — to soldiers overseas. It's part of a statewide effort to deliver holiday spirit to troops. About 100 trees were sent overseas this year.

This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 4:25 AM with the headline "Boardman students receive ‘thank you’ from soldiers overseas."