RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) – A school in Rutland is helping to rebuild Iraq by sending supplies.

Such things as pens, pencils, glue and notebooks are among the goods send from Christ the King School in Rutland help to erase the devastation of war.

In January, Maj. Bill Lukaskiewicz, executive officer of the U.S. Army 101st Forward Support Battalion, sent a distress call from his unit’s base in Iraq to his brother back home, Robert Lukaskiewicz, chairman of the Christ the King School Board.

In the call for aid, Bill Lukaskiewicz asked his brother if the Catholic school could send supplies for 200 elementary school girls struggling to get an education in war-ravaged Habbaniyah, Iraq.

That community, about 80 kilometers west of Baghdad, is located near a defunct Iraqi airbase. Before the war, the population was estimated at around 10,000 people, many of whom worked at the airbase.

But many people left the area after the war and now the population has dwindled to about 1,000 people, Lukaskiewicz said.

Most of the population is poor and the town itself suffered severely before the U.S. occupation, he said. “The community sustained major looting and vandalism during the Saddam (Hussein) regime,” he said via e-mail.

The Al Huda Primary School for Girls in the heart of the community didn’t escape the jackals, Lukaskiewicz said.

When his unit began working to improve the school last winter, he said, the 47-year-old building was in terrible shape.

The roof leaked, there were no windows, many of the floors were made of dirt, looters had stripped all the wiring, there was no running water and debris and garbage covered the school grounds.

Engineers were able to pick up the mess and repair most of the structural damage, but the 200 girls in grades 1 through 6 still didn’t have what they needed.

“The school had no supplies; in fact they only had one box of chalk,” Lukaskiewicz said. “Many of the students shared one pencil and one notebook, making sure they used all of the paper on both sides.”

In Rutland, Christ the King principal RoseMaria Doran said the school’s staff and students responded to the Iraqi school’s need by filling 11 boxes with about 1,000 items ranging from pencils and pens to glue sticks, candy and notes of encouragement.

She said classes were given assignments to collect various school supplies for the Iraqi children last March. The response, she said, was overwhelming.

“It makes my heart sing whenever the school makes a gesture like this,” Doran said.

The effort was also aided by American Legion Post 31 in Rutland, which paid the postage on the care packages.

Lukaskiewicz said the supplies from Rutland arrived in May and were gratefully received by the teachers and students.

One Iraqi student took the time to write in English how happy she was.

“To my friends in U.S.A,” 11-year-old Rand Adb Al Rahman wrote in a letter. “Our friends (U.S.A) visited us in our school and gave us many, many nice things (copybooks, pens, pencils, papers, chalk, clothes) and we say thank you very much to (U.S.A.)”

AP-ES-07-10-04 1223EDT