Soldier's Sister Brings "Happy Meals" to Iraq

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How did Toys4Troops get started?

The originator of Toys4 Troops, Stephanie Ramirez started this program six months after her brother was deployed.  As she would receive a few phone calls and some letters from him, occasionally he would ask for specific items that he missed from home. He really really missed tuna salad sandwiches from Subway. So, she sent him tuna salad and a local Subway in the Northwest Houston area donated packets of mayonnaise. She also tried to include some things from a list distributed by the First Presbyterian Church of Livingston, Texas. The church had suggested that people send: pencil sharpeners, ruled notebook paper, drawing paper, stickers, small jigsaw puzzles, colored pencils, chalk
pencil box or pen pouch, children's scissors, blue or black pens, construction paper, notepads, hot wheels, Frisbees, and plastic slinkys for the soldiers to have available for Iraqi children. The children in Iraq warmly received these items and they were especially useful at school. This sparked an idea for Stephanie. She decided to include in her brother's next care package, not only some of the items suggested by the church but she included some of the plastic toys that are available inside many fast food restaurants children's meals. She thought they would be a cute "joke" to send her brother these toys providing some much needed comic relief.

After her brother received the toys he contacted her again, with a request for even more of these cute plastic toys. He had given his away to Iraq children who admired them and soon he and his platoon members were surrounded by children clamoring for more and more of these typical American children toys. A toy that our children play with for a few minutes and throw away became one of the most popular items that children were wanting in Iraq. He asked her to send all of these toys that she could, as the children loved them and the platoon was wanting to be able to hand them out to the children.

* quote by Albert Schweitzer