01:31 PM CST on Sunday, December 4, 2005

By Chau Nguyen / 11 News

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A local Boy Scout troop is saying thank you to soldiers in Iraq, but it is truly a lesson in giving, after something valuable was stolen from the scouts.

The Cub Scouts of Pack 1331 and the Boy Scouts of Troop 1332 are playing Santa.

They are stuffing 400 stockings with everything from toiletries to candies to go halfway around the world.

Pretty soon, soldiers from the 1st Battalion out of Fort Hood will receive boxes full of the stockings.

The project to send stocking started 12 days ago and since then, their scoutmaster said they have been hard at work.

“It’s a lot of excitement, there’s no, nobody’s grumbling at all,” Scoutmaster Allen Cross said. “I mean they really see the sense of doing all this.”

Taking part in projects is part of being a scout, but this year for the troops was a little different. This year, the boys suffered a setback, because the trailer they had been using for camping trips was stolen.

Instead of raising money to buy a new one, the boys decided helping troops was a more worthy cause.

“I think the troops need our help because they’re kinda homesick, and they need our support,” said Boy Scout Vincent Stancik.

“We can always work around getting another trailer we can maybe borrow, so we’d rather do something like this,” said Boy Scout Kyle Mcleland.

In this holiday season, the scouts prove that there’s something much more to be gained when you give back.