Father of Soldier Brings Denver Community Together to Pack School Supplies for Children in Iraq

Today, Kevin Farrell, a member of the Rotary Club of Denver Southeast, one of the largest and oldest service organizations in the world, brought the<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />  Denver community together and packed over 150 boxes of school supplies for children between the ages of five and ten in Iraq.

In April 2008, Kevin Farrell’s son was deployed in the Anbar Province of Iraq. He is the team leader with a PysOps company tasked with “winning the hearts and minds” of the local population.

After seeing and hearing about the deplorable conditions that Iraqi children faced, Greg Farrell and his father made a proposal to the Rotary Club of Southeast Denver whose mission is “service above self” to support the effort to send school supplies to the children.

“The key to the success of the school supplies project is having a direct contact in Iraq to ensure that supplies are getting to the school children who need them most,” said Kevin Farrell, Iraq Project Director at Rotary Club of Southeast Denver. “We couldn’t have done this without the hard work that Greg and the Rotary put into this project. It’s a great feeling to know that these supplies will further the education of children who have experienced a lot of trauma in their lives.”

Approximately 25 Rotarians have participated in the program and organizations such as the DU Rotaract, CCHS Interact clubs and some of the Rotary’s RYLArians also participated. One of the long-term strategies is to identify Iraqi leaders who might be interested in becoming a charter member of a new Rotary club in Iraq as a result of the Rotary’s involvement in Iraq communities.  The Denver Mile Hi Club is pursing that and has sponsored several Iraqi refugees here in Denver.