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A few thousand Boy Scouts will learn about aerospace this weekend at the Aerospace-O-Rama, but they will also have a chance to be part of a large project to send aid to Afghanistan.
Wid Tolman, coordinator of the event, said the Boy Scouts contacted a Utah charity, The Afghanistan Orphanage Project, about gathering items to send to orphans in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan Orphanage Project, or TAO Project, was started by a handful of Utah Army National Guard members who saw first-hand the poverty in the country during their service there.
Tolman said the Boy Scouts in the Utah National Parks Council were asked to gather winter coats and blankets within their own neighborhoods and churches. The donated items will be collected at the Aerospace-O-Rama -- an overnight event for Varsity and Venture Scouts held near Fairfield -- and sent to Fresno, Calif., where they will be on their way to Afghanistan. Although organizers do not know yet how much has been collected, Tolman said there should be plenty to fill the 18-wheeler The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has sent to move the items for free. The Boy Scouts in his own church collected enough to fill a living room and more.
"I'm anticipating that if all the Scouts do that, we'll need a whole fleet of trucks," he said.
Layne Pace, an Apache pilot from Orem and president of the TAO Project, said the Boy Scouts have been a big help in getting the charity organization off the ground. The organization is run completely by volunteers and relies on donations to help the Afghani people.
Pace said the charity group got its start while he and others of the 211th Aviation unit served in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. Some of the founding members of the orphanage project served in the unit, including Pace, Jared Jones and Miss Utah Jill Stevens. The director of the group, Shah Karimi, served as an interpreter for the United States in Afghanistan. The soldiers saw children with no shoes or coats in the winter and decided to help.
"There were several of us that wanted to do more of the other side than shooting and that kind of destruction," he said.
What started as some donations sent from family members grew to the soldiers adopting two orphanages and two villages to bring them aid. The soldiers could not disrupt the missions of their unit, so items were delivered quickly whenever the helicopters' route took them past the villages.
"There was just a lot of behind-the-scenes work that had to be done," Pace said.
The soldiers took donated clothing and toys to the orphanages, as well as medical supplies to the villages. In one town, they met a girl named Halima whose eyes were severely crossed. They eventually helped get the girl the necessary surgery with the help of Egyptian and United States doctors, and later helped others receive medical care as well. Pace said the medical need was overwhelming, and the soldiers used a triage system to determine who had the most need.
Because of the soldiers' volunteer work, Karimi asked them to help build an orphanage, which is the current goal of the TAO Project. Because of the grass-roots nature of the project, the orphanage will be hard to build, but the group hopes to have enough built for 50 children in a year.
For now, the group does not have much room for the volume of donations that has come in, so most of the donations from the Boy Scouts this weekend will go with Dr. Mark Schoffield to a hospital in Kabul that the nonprofit Waterford Foundation is building. Schoffield, the project director for the Waterford Foundation, said the goal is to save lives in Afghanistan where hundreds die because of a lack of health care or warmth in the winter.
Something as small as a jacket or blanket will save people's lives, which Schoffield said the youth who donate the items may not know.
"To them, it's probably an extra coat or something they've grown out of, but they just have no idea the impact it will have," he said.
Schoffield said he expects the Afshar Hospital in Kabul to be open in September, and Pace said he hopes to be able to build the orphanage close to the hospital to get the children the health care they need.
Pace said much of the assistance the group receives comes from the Boy Scout and Eagle Scout projects, and he hopes the Aerospace-O-Rama will help bring awareness to the cause.
Tolman said the donations will be a good project for the Boy Scouts, who he said may not be fully aware of the situation halfway around the world.
"The Scouts, they don't read the newspaper a lot or get involved with anything but iPods and electronic gadgetry," he said. "But they must be aware that there's a lot of suffering."
Recent tragedies around the world, such as the cyclones in Myanmar and earthquakes in China, are hard for people to internalize, Tolman said. The dead and missing in other countries are just numbers until people take the time to get involved.
"I think [the service] will help them to turn outward," he said. "Most of us, especially kids, seem to be inward, the 'me, me, I, I.' "
Pace said he believes the Boy Scouts' lives can be changed by the service, just as the soldiers' lives were deeply affected. Fighting in the military can be difficult, and once soldiers served in the villages, their perspective on life changed.
"Service," Pace said. "That's what it's all about."
For more information on the TAO Project, visit www.taoproject.org. |
