NORWAY – Soldiers again will be receiving stockings and care packages from Mainers hoping to send a little bit of home to Iraq.

“Every soldier will receive something from someone they don’t even know,” said Jen Benson, the family readiness assistant for the Maine National Guard Family Program. “At least cards will go to everyone.”

While there are individuals who call the Maine Army National Guard in Augusta asking how they can send gift packages of holiday cards, there are other groups around the state putting together stockings and other gifts for troops and reservists who won’t be able to come home for the holidays.

“A lot of people are quick to send Maine products,” Benson said. “Something that will give them a taste of Maine.”

She added, “People are giving at this time of year. Very, very giving.”

The Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War in Paris, Bryant Pond and Stoneham will send at least 486 stockings overseas.

This is the third year in a row they have rounded up stockings to ship to Mainers in Iraq.

“People have been generous with cash donations,” said Lesley Dean, who oversees the effort here for the Daughters of Union Veterans. “People have lugged bag after bag in here,” she said, referring to her clothing store, L.F. Pike & Son in Norway.

She said this year the stockings contain many balsam pillows because soldiers discovered a fortuitous mixing of the Maine novelty item with a desert climate. Sweet-smelling balsam-fir items, popular mementos with tourists to Maine, were found to keep away all manner of creepy crawlies.

“We thought it would be a smell of Maine,” Dean said, when the group unknowingly packed the naturally perfumed gifts – a.k.a. Middle Eastern insect repellents – last year in the Christmas stockings. “The guys set them out besides the beds, and the little bugs went to the pillows rather than to them,” Dean said.

About 80 to 100 volunteers among the three local Daughters of Veterans units are still accepting donations.

Toiletries, microwave popcorn, cocoa, candy, candy canes, dry foods, silly things, games, crossword puzzles, toothbrushes, flea collars, deodorants – Dean quickly listed off some of the suggested presents.

Other possibilities are cookies, crackers, dried soups, goldfish, granola bars, bubble gum, instant cereals, beef jerky, instant coffee and tea bags.

The group has contact names of chaplains, first sergeants and supply officers for Maine units in Iraq now. These leaders then hand out the stockings and packages, anonymously connecting people here to service men and women there.

“There’s no doubt that every soldier appreciates what they have in their hands,” Benson said.