Pat Jacobs, Santa Claus to 700

Her only child grew up knowing he wanted to be a soldier. As a toddler, Scott Jacobs wore a little toy helmet. When he was a boy, he built a camouflaged barracks in the back yard that still stands. He was only 16 when he pre-enlisted in the Army, joining as soon as he graduated from Culpeper High School in 1994.

Initially in the 1st Cavalry Division, his first overseas deployment was in Kuwait, where he guarded the border for several months in 1996. He left the Army the following year, became a sheriff's deputy and joined the Army Reserve. But when a recruiter called him shortly after the terrorist attacks of 2001, he was ready to rejoin the service.

Assigned to the Army's 173rd Airborne, he was stationed first in Vicenza, Italy. In February, his unit was deployed to Afghanistan.

The soldiers have faced snipers and roadside bombs. Six weeks ago, Scott Jacobs narrowly escaped death when a bomb exploded a split second before he would have driven his Humvee over it, he told his mother.

From the beginning of his deployment, Pat Jacobs sent her son care packages every two weeks, filled with socks, food, vitamins and history books. He would share them with others in his unit and later began to e-mail requests: a pair of socks for one buddy, a bottle of eyedrops for another, extra socks for yet another.

"He knew all he had to do was tell Mom," Jacobs said.

The care packages kept growing larger and larger, and friends gave her a few extra items for each shipment. Soon she was sending five or six boxes at a time, each weighing at least 20 pounds.

But Jacobs thought she could do still more. At first it seemed a pipe dream, but she decided to put together Christmas packages for all 700 soldiers in the unit. In March, she started collecting boxes from a shoe store, stockpiling them in the attic that once was Scott's bedroom.

Initially, about 10 friends helped her by buying a few things for the boxes. The local chapter of a Vietnam veterans organization donated some items and money for postage, as did the American Legion post, several Ruritan clubs and the Moose lodge.

Jacobs put donation boxes at four businesses, where customers have dropped off plastic bags of inexpensive items. A sign on each box says "Support Our Troops in Afghanistan."

As guidance, Jacobs put together a checklist of suggested items that, taken together, hint at a soldier's lot in Afghanistan. Among them are foot powder, sunscreen, lip balm, pipe cleaners to use for cleaning weapons, fly swatters, extra-strength headache medicine, trail mix and jerky strips.

Scott's former bedroom has been transformed into her workroom. Several card tables are laden with containers of puzzle books, batteries, socks, razors, toothpaste and toothbrushes, candy canes and bubble gum, cans of potato chips and envelopes of hot chocolate. Into each box she places a small felt Christmas stocking filled with candy and a miniature folded American flag donated by the American Legion Auxiliary. She also packs a tiny Christmas tree in most boxes, and puts pine cones and birdhouses in the rest for soldiers who are not Christians.