Operation Santa collects socks for soldiers

Posted on October 22, 2015

By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – Operation Santa wants you to put a sock in it.

That’s the name of the Central Illinois group’s campaign to collect athletic socks to send to troops overseas for the holidays.

The latest collection is Friday at the Bloomington vs. Normal West football game at BHS. Operation Santa president Chris Metz said socks are just one of many things the group plans to send to the troops.

“What we really need now are stocking-stuffers to put in our stockings, beef jerky, hot cocoa and drink mixes and funds to mail these because it costs a lot of money to mail 5,000 stockings,” Metz said.

The collection started earlier this fall at Prairie Central High School.

“We realized some of the boys on the football team might be deployed next year,” Metz said. “We just wanted to build it up and we’ve had a very good response to it.”

The stockings will be shipped starting in early November. First priority will be given to troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and then to other troop deployments across the globe.

Donations can be dropped off at the WJBC studios and several other locations in Bloomington-Normal.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].

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