It began with a few letters.

As part of Rifle Middle School Fifth Grade teacher William Allen’s writing assignment, he asked his students to use their writing skills to pen letters to a handful of soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Amanda Crow, Sarah Salmonsen, Hunter Carman and Abby Cole display some of the many items donated as part of the Call To Duty project at Rifle Middle School.

To see a complete list of the items being collected click here for an Adobe PDF document.

It has turned into so much more.

Allen began the school year by visiting the web site anysoldier.com and asked a few soldiers if they would be interested in writing to his students. The initial small writing campaign designed to hone letter writing skills, and provide support for the troops has now manifested into a school-wide movement to provide comfort boxes and letters to the troops serving abroad that they call “Call To Duty.”

“We were writing to soldiers as pen pals,” explained fifth grader Abby Cole, “and Mr. Allen suggested that we send items to the soldiers to make them feel at home while they are away.“

At the Veterans Day assembly last week, several members of Allen’s class addressed a whole school assembly and informed them of their idea. It caught on like wild-fire.

“There have been a lot of people bringing in items,” said fifth grader Hunter Carman. “They want to do it because it is helping people that serve our country.”

The goal of the school is to collect 800 pounds of comfort items including foot powder, hand sanitizer, toothpaste and tooth brushes, chap stick, ramen noodles, sunflower seeds, AA batteries, ball point pens, books, magazines hard candy and gum.

Allen’s classroom is beginning to brim over with donations. The class that brings in the most pounds of comfort items will earn a pizza party for their efforts. Additionally, the school has a side competition going.

Rifle Middle School Principal Shane Bostic has volunteered to sacrifice his beard and his hair in the effort to raise money for postage to mail the comfort boxes overseas.  In a modified “penny war,” the class that brings in the most pennies will get to shave Mr. Bostic’s beard. The class that brings in the most nickels will earn the right to shave his head. Money for this event must be turned in prior to December 11, 2009 and the actual shaving will occur prior to winter break.

Allen, who is a retired Army veteran of 20 years and a first year teacher, has been impressed with the response  from his school.

“The next day I had staff members offering me money, kids following me down the hall with bags of supplies and community members dropping off items in the office. I have been pretty surprised by the school and community response,” said Allen.

For his students, it has been a great example of how one idea of selflessness can create a great community movement.

“It’s been pretty fun,” said Carman, “because when you are helping someone else, it makes you feel good. You are helping someone who has helped you more than you could ever help them.”

The class will begin sending packages after Thanksgiving, and is not sure how many packages they will be sending. They will take donations through December 15.

For a complete list of items requested by Mr. Allen’s fifth grade class, please visit the Rifle Middle School web site at garfield-re2.riflems.schoolfusion.us. If you would like to make a donation, you may drop it off at the Rifle Middle School office between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.