STONEHAM – Operation Desert Stocking aims to fill 600 large Christmas stockings for a special group of Mainers at war.

The goal: to send one stocking each to the 600 members of the Maine National Guard’s 133rd Engineering Battalion stationed in Iraq.

“Support from businesses and individuals has been very generous, and the response from area high schools and youth organizations is outstanding,” said Leslie Dean, a member of Stoneham’s Tent 19 of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

She said one man came into her L.F. Pike & Son store in Norway with gifts because his daughter went to school with one of the members of the 133rd, and a Boy Scout dropped off his favorite candy.

Members of the 133rd from the Lewiston and Norway armories have been working on rebuilding schools and roads north of Baghdad since April 2004. They left Jan. 6 for Fort Drum, N.Y., and although they hope to back in a year, there are no guarantees of that, she said.

The members of Stoneham, Bryant Pond and Paris Daughters of Union Veterans chapters are coordinating the operation, which is gathering stocking-stuffer items most needed and wanted by the troops. Anything that doesn’t fit in a stocking will go in a box.

The women are also seeking monetary donations to help pay for shipping the stockings in time for Christmas.

Operation Desert Stocking was born during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when more than 225 stockings were sent by the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War to a transportation unit from New York. The Army troops received the gifts when they were in Saudi Arabia, waiting to move on Iraq.

“If we did it then for men we didn’t even know, there’s no reason in the world we can’t do it now, especially with the great support this community gives the Maine Guard units,” Dean said.

Staff from Bridgton Hospital have already delivered four huge boxes of goodies, and are still collecting, she said. Students at Leavitt Area High School in Turner, Buckfield Junior/Senior High School in Buckfield, and Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg area all working on the project, she added.

“I’ve had calls from Girl Scouts in Baldwin all the way up to Sidney,” said Dean, who has been working on the project since August.

Among those working on the project are Junior Girl Scout Troop 258 and Cadette Troop 718 from the Hiram/Baldwin area, residents and staff at Montello Manor in Lewiston, and McLaughlin Gardens and the Park Street Press, both in Paris.

“We’re praying and hoping that we get enough for all the postage,” she said.

Dean said organizers plan to provide stockings for other Maine servicemen and women stationed overseas, both regular military and guardsmen, if time and donations allow.

“We try to prop everybody up. We got into this because the 133rd is right in our back yard. They’re our friends and our neighbors, and 600 stockings is a lot of stockings,” she said.

“The state of Maine has an enormous tradition of sending more than their quota (of troops) and more (supplies) than they can use,” she said. “We tend to our own.”