I was born and lived on R-58, the St. Petersburg side of ACV school for 57 yrs. After Janice, my wife, died I remarried and move near Keppel’s Corners. I found this old clipping from The Emlenton News. Folks gathered a lot of clothing, soap, tooth paste, brushes, and other necessity’s. They shipped them to me in Vietnam, and I delivered the items to an orphanage. It was a fantastic pleasure to be able to do this. I will be forever thankful to the donors for giving this memory to me in 1963.
Carl E. Jackson
Carl Jackson Writes From South Vietnam (1963)
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
I wish to express my many thanks to all who gave articles to my mother, Mrs. C. E. Jackson of Foxburg, to send here, (South Vietnam), for an Orphanage.
Chaplain Payne and I received eleven boxes amounting to 22 pounds of new and used clothing, towels, wash cloths, sheets, toys, 176 bars of soap and many other useful things for the children and missionaries. I understand these were mostly given by the Methodist Church and the Sunday School Class, and the American Legion Auxiliary. Also, the Church and Sunday School Class gave a cash donation of $60 to be used to buy needed articles and help pay the postage. The soap was collected by the Boy Scout Troop 43 of St. Petersburg who went door-to-door asking for a bar of soap.
Chaplain Payne and I delivered the boxes to an orphanage in Nha Trang, which is a small city along the coast of Vietnam about 200 miles northeast of Saigon. It is a beautiful city and the orphanage is in a lovely spot, just outside the city along the coast in a palm tree covered area, only about 100 yards to nice beach at the end of a bay.
The orphanage is very neat and in very good condition which requires much work in this climate. It is run by Vietnamese and has approximately 200 children of all ages up to 15 years. Wherever we went about the orphanage 20 or 30 children followed us shouting, “Hello” and “OK”, the only two words they can speak in English and they sure use them.
I talked to one American missionary who has been there for 15 years and wouldn’t think of leaving. We didn’t spend as much time there as we would have liked to because it is outside the considered safe zone for Americans.
Needless to say the G.I.s are looking after the orphanage and with help from home are trying to keep them supplied.
There is a Mennonite Missionary Hospital about 50 yards away, with an American doctor, his wife and a nurse.
Again I wish to express my many thanks for .the opportunity to convince a future generation that we Americans aren’t so bad after all, as some people would have have it believed. I must say I never expected so much response to my request and I certainly enjoyed my trip to the orphanage and visiting with the children.
Thank You,
A/2C Carl E, Jackson
Now serving with the
A.F, in South Vietnam (1963)
Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Jackson also received the following message
from Rev. Le-van-thai, Director of the orphanage:
“On behalf of the Orphans and the Home Staff of the Evangelical Orphanage in Nha Trang, we thank you very much for your nice gift which consists of eleven boxes of used clothes. Your kindness brought a very great comfort to our children”.
May the Lord richly bless you.
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