Adopt-a-vet delivers mounds of gifts to VA

By EMILY NIPPS, Times Staff Writer
Published December 24, 2007

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TAMPA - It started with the Rev. Debbie Moss' request three weeks ago at a Tampa Unity Church service: Would anyone like to adopt a veteran for Christmas?

The response, she said, was overwhelming.

Moss learned from a Tampa Unity member and James A. Haley VA Medical Center employee that several lonely Tampa veterans have no living friends or family to visit them over the holidays. She decided to take on 20, hoping her congregation would help provide gifts and company to the chosen vets.

Tampa Unity wound up giving hundreds of gifts to 40 veterans, who gathered in a room at Haley's nursing home wing to eat cookies and drink soda with the friendly strangers. Some nodded and sang along with the choir's Christmas carols. A local professional dance troupe, the Bunny Ott Dancers, shimmied around the room. "Isn't this amazing?" Moss said. "We first thought we'd just go sing, have a few presents, and it just grew from there. We really didn't know what we were getting into."

Some from the 300-member church handed out wrapped gifts to the veterans, who had provided their first name and last initial, and what they wanted for Christmas. The more popular items were blankets, underwear, sweatshirts, shaving cream, tapes or CDs and stuffed animals. Tampa Unity members will return to the hospital nursing home on Christmas to deliver more gifts.