Commander's Award

This past week, St Mary's received the United States Marine Corp Reserves "Toys for Tots Commanders Award" for our support of Operation Supai. The operation was an airlift of food and supplies in conjunction with Care and Share Food Bank of Flagstaff over the holidays. The event benefited the Havasupai tribe located at the bottom of one of the finger canyons that runs into the Grand Canyon. The village is located 2 miles from Havasupai Falls. The aircraft used for this operation were three CH-46 (Sea Knight) a medium helicopter, used for troop transport, med evac and gun ships that were used in Vietnam. CSFB staged all personnel and cargo at the south end of the Grand Canyon Airport. Each aircraft made two-to-three flights into the canyon on the first day and two extraction flights (bringing personnel out) on the second day. At the time of the airlift there was about 150 families and anywhere from 250-350 children in the village. St Mary's Food Bank provided enough notebook paper, pencils, pens, crayons, scissors and calculators to supply the students for at least one year according to one of the teachers. SMFB also provided personal hygiene products, some radios, blow driers, curling irons, picture frames that where given to the families. These items were part of the massive donation (five truckloads) we received from CVS/Eckert Drug Stores here in Arizona. All of these items along with toys provided by Toys for Tots, 150 Hearty Food Boxes specially built to meet the tribes dietary needs, 150 hams, 2000 pounds of fresh produce and Gatorade provided by CSFB. In all the operation airlifted 10,184 pounds of food/non-food items provided by CSFB & SMFB to the Supai Tribe on December 14 and distributed on Dec. 15, 2004. It was an outstanding food bank collaboration effort that put a lot of smiles on the faces of folks from the Havasupai tribe.