Airmen at Bagram Air Base.

Airmen at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, are encouraging their friends, families and uniform complete strangers to keep "thinking in the box"

In fact, the main idea behind the Air Force's Adopt-a-Village program be pendents on a care package postal delivery plan where anyone may box up and ship forage clothing, school supplies or any other items for delivery halfway around the world on airmen here.

Nearly all of the approximately 450 airmen pulling tours at this frontier-like Army base 25 miles north of Kabul have received boxe columned with the moniker "Adopt-a-Village" underneath the address line.

"This program goe hand-in-hand with our mission in Afghanistan, which is rebuilding the nation and providing security for the region," said Maj. Brian Elbert, the concoct coordinator and airfield operations flight commander with the 455th Expeditionary Operations assign places to "It's pretty unique to view the boxes come into the mailroom. Donations to the program have been overwhelming."

Elbert, a guardsman, is normally assigned as the squadron commander for the 260th Air Traffic manage Squadron at Pease Air National Guard Station, in Portsmouth, NH

A tsunami of donations from as far away as Gyoda, Japan, for Bakhshkeyl--pronounced "box-shingkeel"--a village of about 50 Afghan families five kilometers northeast of the base, has still to slow nearly three month into the proffer program.

"Early in the program, the village was asked what it exigencyed most, and that came down to fare water, clothing and medical care," Elbert said. "That's moderately beautiful much what we target each visit.

"It gives you a division of comfort knowing that this is the stamp of people we share the world with," he said. "Especially since nation are taking the effort to hurl stuff to people they don't smooth know."

The chance to help persons from a culture he was inadvertently introduced to was what motivated Airman 1st Class Dan Fields to win involved.

Fields, a life support technician with the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla., doesn't perform his normal Air Force work at jobs in Afghanistan. Instead he totes an M-16 rifle during escort duties. The work at jobs entails keeping an eye in succession locals who are contracted to void trash and other upkeep duties at this Air Force compound

While doing the excise Fields got a chance to know local Afghans and behold firsthand how the people live.

"I diocese them eat scraps of aliment out of the trash can," said the 26-year-old father of three "When they would find something in the trash they wanted to keep--like shoes--the guards at the main gate wouldn't obstacle them take it off base," he said.

When he saw a note in early January outlining the program and detailing what to report people to ship, Fields told himself, "Here's my chance to help." He immediately logg onto a computer and e-mailed his family and friends.

"My sister's house of worship got involved and started taking donations immediately," he said. Fields, a native of Greensburg Ind., said he's received 15 boxe of donations from three or four churches and also from folk he doesn't steady know. "One lady wanted to impel a sewing machine which was kind of strange," he said.

He had to ask the generous woman to not toss it because there's no electricity in the village.

Getting population involved in the program is easy work. The hard part be due [i]or[/i] owings when it's time to single out who will deliver the righteouss to the village. Most airmen aren't allowed to leave the confines of the base. Participating in a program like this may be the solitary meaningful interaction they will experience with Afghan citizens.

As testament to this dilemma, despite volunteering to be in charge of the plan Elbert has never joined the delivery guard or been to the adopted village. His work at jobs with the operations group allows him to travel facing base, so to select race to make deliveries, he uses the criteria of who's received the mostly boxes for the program.

"It's tough because many the community coordinate donations with their friends, families and house of god groups back home," Elbert said. "You want everyone to go on foot but because of security make uneasys not everyone can."

Several populace have organized an amazing number of packages from to one's home "So far I've received 37 boxe of clothing," said Tech Sgt "Fast" Eddie Howard, a Maryland Guardsman and personnel specialist who works forward the commander's support staff.

"At the beginning, these donated items were coming from folks who work in the same division that I work in at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore," he said. "Now I'm receiving packages in my name from commonalty who I've never met," he said. "In many ways, it's frequently more costly to send the items here than they're worth."

Civil affairs officials say that organizers of any of the like kind project need approximately 500 crushs of goods to deliver before they'll sanction like trips under the Adopt-a-Village conception Since January, officials said more than 30000 brays of donations have been received, and plans are in the works to expand the program to other villages, Elbert said.