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TUCSON SECTOR BORDER PATROL
Tucson,
AZ
LEO Bags: 3,637 -
K9 Bags: 144 - Hoofers:
96
Bagging & Delivery Day: November 12, 2022
In late January 2022,
the idea was suggested to give our blue bags of
smiles to our Arizona Border Patrol Agents.
With the help of Deer Valley Civil Air Patrol,
Squadron 302, and Major Blattstein, Arizona Wing
CDO from we were able to
turn this huge venture into a success.
Since Border Patrol is such a large undertaking,
we divided up Tucson and Yuma Sectors (coming
2023), and in late July, we were given the
"okay" to plan our visit to Tucson, and that is
when the fundraising started! With the help of
so many folks, from fundraising, to donations of
supplies, to spreading the word when we needed
more donations - somehow we accomplished our
largest single day bagging and delivery event.
Our BlueRox painters, led by Samantha started
painting and kept quite busy climbing a nearly
impossible mountain; and our Thank You Card
writers truly went above and beyond writing out
over 3,500 TY Cards to make sure every BPA
received one. And 2 very talented group members
took on the task of designing and creating
ornaments and treat bags for the K9s and
Hoofers.
In addition, we set up "pre-packing" where we
would get together and pre-package our
perishable and non-perishable items, thus saving
enormous amounts of time. So instead of simply
walking down a line of inventory in a tub and
individually filling bags, volunteers simply had
to "grab and go", 1 bag each of perishable &
non. A VERY special thank you to an amazing lady
who pre-packaged over 1900 of these.
On Friday, November 11, we met up with CAP
Squadron Commander, Cpt. Nic Fuqua, where he
opened the doors to the Squadron's hangar and
welcomed us into CAPs home. We set up all of the
boxes, bags, and several members got to work
getting bagging done in advance.
Saturday, November 12 started out dark and quite
early, and the day promised to be long - and
tiring. However, when you know how overworked
our Border Patrol Agents are, somehow you find
the extra "oompf" to give you a push to keep
going, filling, tying, packing, counting and
back for another. A super great crew came
together, along with cadets from CAP and in just
4.5-5 hours, we filled, packed, and loaded
3,650 bags and 144 K9 bags into
the Uhaul and trucks headed down to Tucson. The
hangar was cleaned up, and by 12:38 PM, we were
on our way, and on schedule to arrive by our ETA
of 2:30 PM.
UNfortunately - traffic around Phoenix
had other ideas!
On any normal day, driving down to Tucson would
be about 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours. However, the
101, the 202, and parts of I-10 were closed, or
under construction; and given this, naturally,
the roads leading TO the I-10 were severely
congested too.
Fortunately, the Uhaul arrived along with
several volunteers, and by 4 PM, the unloading
began! So many volunteers from Tucson, plus
Agents were on hand to unload. A very special
thank you to Agent Hernandez from TBP who helped
to coordinate everything and was there to greet
us!
And then - to the surprise AND delight of all of
the volunteers, Agent Hernandez offered us a
tour of the Joint Operations Command Center.
What a FANTASTIC
opportunity and experience for all of us who
drove down from Phoenix and came over from all
around Tucson!
After delivery, we then had the opportunity to
go to Rudy's BBQ to sit and talk to a couple of
Agents and learn more about Border Patrol.
A long day for everyone - but so so worth it.
Thank You - to every individual, every
organization, every donor who made it happen!
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