By Tanya De Jesus
tdejesus@kcautv.com
Many Siouxland military families were not together for the holidays last year and for many soldiers who just came back from deployment, this time of year can be very stressful. But tonight an event helped with some of those problems.
Sioux City's Public Museum was turned into a Christmas base filled with about 150 military families. The mission? "Operation Pay it Forward."
"Holidays are hard, especially for our military members. Some of them come home to no jobs, some of them come home laid off and it's just helps to make things a little bit more fun for them," said Molly Gray, a volunteer for Support Siouxland Soldiers.
Support Siouxland Soldiers, the museum and the Free Masons of Iowa gave the families an opportunity to have some holiday fun together and for the kids Christmas came early. Each of them got to choose a toy, a book and a Scentsy Buddy.
Adam Spates is a soldier who spent the night helping to distribute the toys. Last Christmas he was in Afghanistan and this will be the first Christmas he spends with his expecting wife and step daughter.
Spates says, "You know just to see their face when they get to open the presents. You know last year all I did was pay for them. Now I get to actually see them open them."
And to help Support Siouxland Soldiers continue their work in the home-front, the Iowa Free Masons donated $10,000 to help make sure our heroes have a safe happy holiday back home.
