PORT TOWNSEND — Children in Iraq are sleeping warmer now that much-needed blankets and clothing collected in a community drive have arrived in the war-racked country.
“I received all 112 or so boxes from you and have delivered all but a few,” Chris Loverro told Carrie Pierce in an e-mail.
“The rest will be delivered over the next couple of weeks.”
Loverro is an Army Reserve staff sergeant with a Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade Combat Team stationed in Mosul, Iraq.
He met Pierce, who lives in Port Townsend, in a chance encounter at a Seattle restaurant in November and struck up an acquaintance.
Remembering her offer to correspond, he wrote and asked if she could help provide blankets, jackets, shoes and warm clothing for refugee Iraqi children through a humanitarian project he called Operation Blanket.
Pierce spread the word via her Soroptimist Club to the Port Townsend community, including schools and churches, which responded by dropping off contributions, including some school supplies, at the downtown police station.
Edel Sokol, who, with her husband, Bob, a Port of Port Townsend commissioner, own the Ann Starrett Mansion in uptown Port Townsend, arranged to buy blankets from Pendleton Woolen Mills at a reduced cost.
Jim and Nancy Dornan sewed wool blankets by hand.
The boxes were shipped to Iraq in February. Almost $2,000 was donated to cover the massive costs of shipping.
