Palm Desert Students Seek Items For Deployed Marines

The Key Club at is hosting a "Love and Care Packages" drive for deployed U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.

"The Love and Care Packages that we are creating for the Marines, has been a project in the works for a month," third-year member Brittney Baird explained. "Our advisor Ms. Leigh Baird directed me to Mr. Sullivan and from there we were finally able to start our drive."

Some items such as baby wipes and hand sanitizers are needed when water resources are limited, as proper hygiene is very important as a preventative measure in the spread of diseases within a camp.

A donation box will be put outside their meeting room for any student who wishes to participate in this cause, Baird said.

Key Club members are collecting the type of items that are everyday necessities, such as shampoo, nail clippers, razors, sunscreen and laundry detergent.

"I'm very impressed," Jim Sullivan said of the work the Key Club has put in to organizing this project. Sullivan is the current secretary and treasurer of the Desert Cities Mitchell Paige Medal of Honor Chapter 1st Marine Division Association.

As part of the drive, Sgt. Major Ray Schum, a World War II veteran, spoke at the campus last month, drawing a large crowd.

Schum, 89, is one of the few veterans alive that enlisted into the Marines prior to the World War II draft.

He fought in Guadalcanal, which he described as “one of the most highly contested battles of the war.”

“What I remember more than anything else was being hungry for seven months,” Schum recalled.

He said the food supply consisted of “a rotation between ham with lima beans, soup and hash."

But Schum would not trade having served in the Marines.

“As I look back on my life, at almost 90 years old, I can sit back and say (to myself), you know, you’ve got it made,” Schum said.

Key Club international is a high school volunteer organization sponsored by Kiwanis International.