Operation Undies 2011--The History--The Collection

Note: The next five posts are dedicated to Operation Undies 2011. If you want to read ALL of it, or just see photos of the delivery, you may need to scroll down and hit "older posts" to see the full montage. Sorry, there is just so much to say about all of this. So, without further delay. . .

Operation Undies exploded this year, but in a good way. What began as a simple collection of items with an emphasis on socks and underwear has transformed into a massive charity drive which involved hundreds, maybe even a thousand people.

Operation Undies benefits my sweet migrant friends at the Centro de la Familia Headstart in Providence Utah. I found this organization in 2009 when my friend from years past, who is a teacher there, sent out a mass e-mail to all her friends and family asking for some help with a few families with some especially dire needs.

I happily organized my family including my siblings to meet the needs of a singular family at Christmas. Collecting items gave me a wonderfully addictive feeling. After dropping our items off to my friend I learned more about the school and the desperate needs all the students at the school had.

I planned better the next year and brought my ward in by collecting used clothing from my ward members. I also responded when the owner of the dance studio where my children take lessons asked if anyone knew of a Christmas service project the studio could support. The dancers and their families donated more than 100 toys for the kids. In addition I pestered my facebook and regular friends and collected 140 packs of new socks and underwear in less than a week’s time.

The turn-out from these collections was amazing. I was elated as I filled my mini-van entirely up. I felt great all December long as I collected and thought about the families that would benefit from the collection. I felt especially great about the socks and underwear we were providing to kids who only had a pair or two of underwear. In many cases their underthings were threadbare, full of holes or were way too large.

We dropped off the load. The teachers at the school were stunned with our load. They were not expecting it and didn’t really even seem to know we were coming. I’m sure I heard one of them say… “Now, who are you?” “Now, what is all this stuff?”

I was like… “What? You don’t know me? Well, you better get to know me because I’ll be here every year, and next year I’m coming in a moving van.”

They were like… “Okay crazy, see you never.” And then Operation Undies was born.

The Collection

This year wanting to fulfill, my prediction that I would indeed come in a moving van, I began to think of this drive early. In August, I planned when I would start making phone calls, which was September.

In September I made my first call to the school. “Hello, I am Kristin Sokol the crazy lady who brought dozens of bags of clothes and socks and underwear last year…Yeah, that’s me. What are your biggest needs this year?”

They told me that in the past they’ve had an organization generously donate new coats to every child in the center. This year the group was not planning to fill this need. So, they needed about 100. I was a little overwhelmed at the idea of coming up with 100 new coats. In fact, I told them that I was sure I could NOT come up with 100 new coats. I thought I might be able to scrape together 50 used coats. They assured me that they would be very satisfied with whatever I brought and that whatever it was would be well needed and used.

I was on my phone in the car during this conversation. After I hung up, I sat there for a minute and thought…there must be a way. I assured myself that I COULD do this. Then, Tiffany Dance Company popped into my head since that’s where I was driving to pick up my daughter from her dance lesson. Once I arrived, I asked Tiffany if she would be willing to do coats. New coats. She said sure without batting an eye and only asked how many. I told her up to 100. She took a breath but said she’d try and thought she could get close.

A few minutes after I left there a friend of mine called. Her daughters are serious competitive dancers at another studio, Elite. In passing I asked if their dance studio did a Christmas service project to which she responded yes.

I told her about the need for new coats. She said she’d mention it to her dance people next time she was in there. To my surprise, she called me only an hour or so later with a big fat YES. I was stunned.

This task, which completely overwhelmed me had been single handedly completed within only a few hours. That’s when I really started to see the potential this project had.

It’s a worthy and needy organization that helps hardworking people and sweet children. Who wouldn’t want to help these people? Answer, no one.

Operation Undies 2011--The Organizations

With a few simple phone calls, e-mails and facebook requests I had a team of people and organizations ready in only a few weeks to step up and provide relief. Some of the organizations and people I did not know before this project. They found out about the project from someone and got my contact information and called me to ask how they could help.

Tiffany Dance Company

Elite Dance Academy

Love 2 Learn Preschool

Shining Star Preschool

Angie Barker’s Preschool

Merrick Bank

Grandview Neighborhood Christmas Social

Copper Oaks Relief Society

Schmidt Family and Friends

Hamilton Family

SEO.com

Peterson Family

Olson/Jeffery’s Family

Saunders/Storm Family

Saunders/Storm’s sisters ward who sponsored 5 more families

My Facebook Friends

Kicks for Kids Charity

Tyler Staten’s Eagle Project

Robinson Real Estate Company aka Utah Dave

Various generous donors

The relief and donations they provided came in several different forms. In all we ended up with…

· Enough gently used clothing via the Copper Oaks Relief Society to outfit the entire school several times. Here's some of my favorite sisters who helped with most the real work of collecting all our used items.

· More than 70 blankets and over 100 packs of socks and underwear via Tyler Staten’s Eagle Scout Project.

This is the only photo of Tyler I got somehow.

But look at all these blankets that he not only collected fabric for, but also tied himself or with the help of other youngsters he organized.

· More than 500 packs of underwear via a combination of groups including:

The employees at SEO.com.

This is one of my favorite and best roomies ever who works at SEO. She even delivered the load to my house. SEO for your information also sponsored a family at the school for Sub for Santa. I can't believe how generous these folks were.

Love 2 learn—Shining Star and Angie Barker’s Preschools. Unfortunately I only got one photo so this represents all the little preschool kids who pack sock and undies to school to donate to other preschoolers. So sweet!

My Facebook and real friends. How I didn't take a photo of all the donations that were put in my box is beyond me. But I did get donations and I was very happy with each delivery. If you came to my house I wasn't here to thank you in person, consider this your...THANK YOU!

The Grandview Neighborhood Christmas Social

This was the brainchild of Heidi Vawdrey, pictured above with her husband. She invited her neighborhood over to her house for Christmas cheer and snacks and invited all who wished to participate to drop off packages of socks and underwear in lieu of exchanging neighbor gifts with each other. Brilliant. For your information, I didn't know Heidi. She's one of several people who heard about this and found me.

· 112 pairs of NEW shoes via Merrick Bank and Kicks for Kids Charity.

Here are some employees at Merrick Bank graciously posing for a photo with the shoes they kindly bought. I may also mention that with the corporate match Merrick offered to cash donations, they also donated $650.

I had a great time carting their donations out and loading them in my van. It was all so very unexpected. My brother Scott who works there mentioned it to the HR department and they decided to take it up as their cause. Amazing. Here's my brother in front of their wall of giving. Employees came and took a paper with a shoe size to buy. Very cute, very effective.

We also collected nearly $1200 in cash donations from some very generous people...Including a pair of brothers who live down the street from me. They are nine and seven years old. They came to my door with their parents. Each of the boys had an envelope in their hand for me with their own money that they had wanted to donate to the kids at this school so they could have some warm clothes to wear and food to eat.

Inside the envelope they handed me was a combined amount of $100. I was totally blown away. These two little boys had just given me what I assume was their life’s savings. How’s that for kindness?

· 110 NEW coats via Tiffany Dance Company and Elite Academy.

Here's Tiffany and part of her crew.

And Elite and their beautiful dancers.

Robinson Real Estate Company AKA Utah Dave most generously donated the use of one of their company trucks to me, a total stranger to them. How did I arrange this? I asked. Go figure. Dave was on a very important phone call when I picked up and dropped off the truck. I'm sure he was making big multimillion dollar deals--and keeping his clients very happy. I was not able to meet him, so one of his employees came and posed for me. Thanks Jeanette!

As a part of this project I had 12 families (that I know of) who heard the call of Operation Undies and went beyond the call by sponsoring 12 of the most needy and deserving families at the school with a full Christmas experience. It was really crazy. I just couldn't believe how many people called me up and wanted to do this. It was so wonderful and so generous. Here are a few pics that some of the sponsor families shared with me.

Here is...
The Schmidt family and friends collection. 24 boxes! Plus a double bed, a dresser and a nightstand. Amazing!

Here's the Olson-Jeffrey's-Federico family collection. They're my cousins.

The personally delivered their load and had the most magical experience.

Here's one representative of the Peterson family who sponsored a family. This is my cousin Margie's in-laws.

Instead of exchanging sibling gifts they sponsor another family. I LOVE that idea. So much more meaningful.

Here's the collection from the Hamilton Family.
They decided to scale back their family's gifts this year and to sponsor a family in need instead. Love it. What a collection!

It was amazing to me to see all the willing hands and hearts that wanted to help. Because of all the organizations and families who helped, this project was huge and very successful.

Operation Undies 2011--The Sleigh

The Sleigh
If you’ve read to this point, you know how incredibly much I care for these people and supporting them with any type of relief. As the donations rolled in, the collection became large. At first I held it all in my neighbor’s unfinished basement (thanks Russ and Jenny). As delivery time got closer, we brought out the boxes and sorted all the clothing and donations by size and sex (thanks Copper Oaks Relief Society sisters). From this time forward we kept them in my garage. Every day the boxes multiplied. I had people, some I knew, some I didn’t, knocking on the door multiple times a day bringing boxes. It became obvious we would need a moving truck.

One sub for Santa sponsor e-mailed me a photo of her stash. She had been so moved by the needs of this family, a newly single father with six young children, that she with the help of her family and friends collected 24 moving boxes of items for the family. I knew right then that a brigade of mini-vans caravanning to Logan would not cut it. I’d never find that amount of vans with available drivers.

Not wanting to spend money on a truck I shouted out to my fb friends to see if anyone had access to a moving type van that I could use for free minus the gas. The only one who responded to my multiple attempts was my BFF Heather who told me Utah Dave, the Salt Lake Valley’s real estate mogul (minus the Trump-style gold leafing) had trucks he lent to his clients.
Seeing many Utah Dave advertisements, I had actually already contemplated this thought, but hoped I might find a better option before I exercised a shot-in-the-dark option. Since no other option presented itself, I gave Utah Dave or Robinson Real Estate a call, explained my situation and was given a “maybe”. Through the magic of Facebook, later that night I connected with Utah Dave himself via Heather. Dave said that’s he’d be happy to lend his truck for my cause.

So…we had a sleigh and a garage full of items. Growing by the hour.

Then, all the boxes were inventoried, and loaded up with the help of Steve and some of our favorite and best neighbor men.


At first I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough to fill the truck. Then I was afraid I’d have too much and not have space for it all.
In the end, we had plenty of room, but did a great job of filling the truck, er…I mean SLEIGH.
We had just enough room to pick up another load in Riverdale. My friend from High School’s son Tyler made this his Eagle Scout project.
We had just enough room on the truck to load his blankets and underthings collection.

The next morning at first light we dropped the kids off at their cousins to play all day as we drove the SLEIGH up north.


You know I had to drive the truck myself. It was my victory lap. I enjoyed every second of it too.


Steve and I quite enjoyed the ride in the loud Utah Davemobile. We (me) rocked out to FM100’s selection of Christmas music (Unrelated question…why have I not heard any new Justin Beiber Christmas Album songs on the radio? I know he has a Christmas Album this year. I mean, how many times an hour do I really have to listen to Mariah Carey sing All I Want For Christmas is You. I mean, I get it, she wants me for Christmas. Give me the Beibs. I have Beiber Fever and I don’t care who knows it).

The Delivery

The Delivery

Before we knew it we’d hooked up with our Eagle Scout and were headed into the Cache Valley. Our friends at the CDLF school were waiting for us to pull up. Unlike last year, they knew we were coming and they knew what we had for them. They were waiting for us in front of the school when we arrived. Tears were shed (mine). Boxes were moved.

This is Javier, the president of the parents association at the school.
He and several other parents were on hand to help us unload the truck. Actually we had about this many people unloading the truck. Some of these folks were teachers at the school too.

When we presented the cash and checks to them I thought they might pass out. It was really fun to take this photo. I just LOVE giving away other people's money.

Last year when we dropped off, the children had already finished school for the day. This time, school was in mid-session. We got to mingle and play with a group of kids while they played at indoor “recess.” I got to go in and help serve lunch to my former mission companion’s preschool class. While I was in there I met a few of the children who I knew would be the recipient of Sub for Santa presents. I got the chance to tell a few of them...“I know you’ve been a good boy this year and that Santa has a lot of presents for you.” They looked at me as if thet doubted that was true. They’ll see though. Santa gonna hook them up!

I also met Littzie. She stole my heart. I would have taken her home with me, except for the she already has loving parents business, like that. She was so adorable and sweet and loving even though she had never met me.

It was such a pleasure to meet and be with these kids. I LOVE them so very much after collecting things for them all year.

I toured the entire school and at least peaked in at all the classrooms. Among my favorite rooms was the infant and baby room. It was nap time so the babies for the most part were sleeping. This little guy however was NOT sleeping. He wanted me. He saw me and wanted me to hold him. He was so squishy. I just wanted to keep him forever so I could squish him any time I wanted. I LOVE him.

I looked in and watched the other babies sleep away. It was so sweet and serene. The teachers told me a little about each of the babies and what their families and family life was like. It was easy to see that the teachers and staff really think a lot of the parents of these children.

We were also there when the children left for the day and got on their little school buses for their homes. We were able to walk them out to the bus and see them off. It was so sweet. Here is one of my former mission sisters who is now one of the directors at the school.

It was really fun for us to see them off. The staff at the school did such a great job showing us around and how the school works. It was really a neat and unexpected experience for us.

At the end of our visit my beautiful friend Liz and I just looked at each other and telepathically connected and told each other that all the stress, worry and effort we’d put into this project was totally worth it and we’d totally do it again next year. Steve’s says he’s terrified. He should be.

On the way out, the staff asked us if we’d like to make one more stop before we left. We had brought with us gifts for two of the 12 Sub for Santa families. They asked us if we’d like to personally deliver one. YES!

My cousin Margie Peterson’s extended family sponsored this family and we had the opportunity to take the gifts. It was one of the funnest things I have ever done. I felt really bad that Margie and her family weren’t there. I feel like I stole this moment from them. I should have insisted that they deliver it themselves.

On the way over to the family’s apartment they told us more about them. This is one of their best families. The parents have had really hard lives and have done a lot to take care of their children and to earn a living. They said that the family would easily qualify for food stamps, but the father insists that they not receive hand-outs. He instead has taken on a second job (and sometimes third) to make ends meet. None of our Sub for Santa families had any idea they were being sponsored. This family looked as stunned as anyone ever could at our stream of gifts and boxes flowing into their meager and empty apartment. You can see from the pictures here that they really didn’t know what to say or how to respond. The mother, asked the CDLF staff if she could hug me. They were really grateful, even though they had no idea what we had brought or why. It was a really special experience.

Before we knew it we were on our way back to return the Dave-moblie and then back home to really and thoroughly enjoy the holiday season. It was a great way to spend the first part of the holidays. I really have to hand it to everyone who helped me with this project. There are SO many of you. My deepest most sincere thanks. I wish all of you a Merry MERRY Christmas and such a happy new year.

We were invited back to the preschool Christmas party a week later. We eagerly returned excited to see all the parents of the children we had met.

We arrived right on-time, but we were among the last to arrive. All the staff whom I have worked and coordinated efforts with were busily hosting the party serving food and making it all happen.

We took the last seats in the room which were right in front of the speaker which was blaring Mexican polka music. It was really...fun. I was fun to see all the families we had worked so hard to support. As we sat there we realized just how real the communication gap was between us and them. Steve does speak a second language, Czech. Not real useful tonight. I do speak a little Spanish, but I mainly know verbs thanks to the several years of Spanish I had in High School and College. Unfortunately it was not enough to understand or communicate with these lovely people especially since I couldn't really understand a thing Steve even said thanks to the aforementioned Mexican Polka music.

We were served a delicious meal of Tamales, the best I have ever had. We also had a variety of other foods. All equally delicious.

The real treat was seeing each of the families receive a big black bag filled with the donations that we received from all of you. Some families got multiple bags. Here's some of the best photos.

At the end we were ready to leave I was saying my good-byes to Tom, the director of the school, when I was told they were asking for me on stage. I of course didn't know that since I only know the useful Spanish words like discotec and the word for library and wrestling. It's amazing what the mind retains over the years.

While I stood on the stage they said all kinds of things. I couldn't understand any of it. I am told they told the audience that I was the one responsible for the donation that they were receiving. Then they presented me with a wrapped gift. It was a digital photo frame pre-loaded with pictures of the school kids throughout the year. I was touched.

They also asked me to say something. So...I spoke into the microphone in English (since that's all I know). I told them there were thousands of people who cared about them and their children. I told them that it was all these people who cared about them that were the ones responsible for the donations. I was just the one who dropped them off. I told them they're were thousands of people who were glad they were here and that we appreciated the hard work they do everyday. (If anyone leaves me a comment on this post about illegal immigration I will personally come to your house and pinch your head off, so don't do it. I promise you don't want to start a discussion with me about illegal immigration especially not on this post, so DON'T). And yes, I cried the whole time I was speaking to them in English. I turned the microphone back over and they translated my whole sobbed speech. Then the crowd erupted in applause.

We left shortly after the on-stage experience. Before we left, the Almazan family, both mother and father, the family we had delivered gifts to the week before, came up to us. They wanted to speak to us, but they couldn't because we're both not smart enough to speak Spanish. They settled for a hand shake. They shook Steve's hand and mine in the most meaningful way. I will never forget the look of gratitude they had in their eyes. I wish I could have known what they wanted to say. I wish I could have told them that it wasn't me who provided the gifts they had received.

We drove home, so grateful for the experience and so grateful to so many people who made this happen. It was a lot of work for a great many people. I hope I have remembered to recognize everyone who helped with this project, but I know that I must have forgotten to mention some of you. There was a lot to keep track of. Just know that I know that I have the best most special friends and neighbors maybe anywhere in the world. I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas and your dreams came true. I wish you also the BEST of new years. 2012 will be the best year EVER!