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A clean pair of socks and green grass is something many might take for granted.

But for soldiers serving overseas, it is just a little taste of home.

As part of Operation Thank You, people from Fort Dodge and surrounding communities worked together over the past several months to put together care packages to send to troops serving overseas.

With boxes of toothpaste, white socks, miniature Christmas trees, hundreds of homemade cookies, and all the other necessities for the boxes spread out in the conference room of the credit union, dozens of volunteers put the packages together at Citizens Community Credit Union Wednesday morning.

Diane and Kirk Adams, of Fort Dodge, began sending care packages to their son Matthew Adams when he was deployed in early 2008.

"It's a blessing for us to be able to do this and we want to show our support," Diane Adams said. "This is a way we can hopefully make a day better for them."

The name Operation Thank You took on when Katie Averill, director of marketing and community development at Citizens Community Credit Union, and her staff got involved with the project.

Averill said she had heard about Adams' project and wanted to get involved to support the troops.

"I think that the people stationed over there are sometimes forgotten," Averill said. "This war effort has dragged on for a long time, and we just want to make sure they're not forgotten."

Averill put the challenge out to help collect items to the other eight branches of Citizens. She also worked with Character Counts to give $50 to the classroom at Cooper Elementary who brought in the most supplies to go in the packages. Three schools in Algona also participated and one in Spirit Lake, Averill said.

Boxes are sent out to each soldier every February, July and October. In October, each soldier gets their necessity box - with razors, lotion, socks, foot powder, and other items not readily accessible overseas and a special box for Christmas - complete with homemade cookies, candy and Christmas decorations.

They are also shipping boxes of extra supplies to chaplains to distribute to soldiers who may not get much from home, Adams said.

Although most of the supplies for the boxes are donated, it's the shipping cost that adds up, Adams said. Each box costs $10.95 to ship.

But this month's boxes will be cheaper to ship since Kemna Auto Center is paying for all of the postage for the boxes.

The 27 soldiers who receive Operation Thank You packages are either from or have a connection to the Fort Dodge or central Iowa area.

"Anyone who is deployed overseas, we feel deserves to have a care package," Adams said. "I think the greatest reward would be if we could actually shake their hands or give them a hug."

As for the grassy characters included in the Christmas boxes, Adams said so much time in sand can make the soldiers appreciate the grass.

"We had a young man come in when he was home on leave and said 'I want to thank you for the little grassy guy. Over there it's just sand - I really miss the grass."

The soldier clipped the grassy guy's hair with nail clippers - three times.

Contact Angela Burch at (515) 573-2141 or aburch@messengernews.net