Thank you for sharing!!!
Ruth Moore
**********************************************************8
----- Original Message -----
From: <DAStoddard(a)aol.com>
To: <CHAMBLEE-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 2:10 PM
Subject: [CHAMBLEE LIST] Diversion from Chamblee research
I am attaching a news article which has nothing to do with
Chamblee/Chamlee
genealogy. As list janitor I don't encourage actions such as my
own here
<g>
but the struggles of some Olympic teams is heart rendering and not
well
known. How kind observing Americans viewed one team's plight and what they
did about it is better than any Olympic victory to date in my little
opinion.
--D. Stoddard
---------
A little kindness goes a long way at Olympics
The Daily Herald on Saturday, February 16
PROVO -- The Olympic ideal played out in real life here over the past week
as
a small group of Utahns embraced the struggling women's hockey
team from
Kazakhstan.
When the team showed up in grubby gear for a practice at The Peaks Ice
Arena
on Feb. 8, Orem's Shannon Arnoldsen and other volunteers
couldn't help but
notice.
"Sweden gets off the bus with matching berets and Versace outfits," said
Matthew Hemmert, a volunteer who supervises team transportation. "Then
Kazakhstan gets off in hospital scrubs or sweat pants with holes in them."
The bus driver told Arnoldsen a sobering tale. He had taken the team
shopping
for souvenirs at a local mall, but the players had returned to the
bus
after
10 minutes.
"Too expensive," the players told the driver.
He next took them to Wal-Mart. A few players made purchases, but most said
the same thing: "Still too expensive."
Finally, the bus arrived at a dollar store.
"Not exactly where you want Olympians to pick up Olympic souvenirs,"
Hemmert
said.
The story gnawed at Arnoldsen, who took three years of Russian at BYU and
felt a kinship with the women from this impoverished former Soviet
Republic.
She went shopping that night in search of souvenirs for the team. She
thought
about Olympic pins, but wanted the gift to be from Provo. It
didn't go
well
at first.
"We just couldn't afford anything because there's 25 players and
coaches,"
she said.
At the Olympic Spirit store, fittingly, she backed into one of her
neighbors
in northeast Orem, and told him the story.
Arnoldsen turned the project over to another neighbor, Susan Randall, and
returned to work at The Peaks. Before she knew it, Roger Utley and Gordon
Brown at the bookstore agreed not to a discount, but to a donation of 25
hooded BYU sweatshirts worth $750. Friends raised $400. The man with the
$100
bill arranged for a gift of 25 button-down dress shirts from the
Utah
Homebuilders Association.
There was more: Randall's daughter created Valentine's Day cards for each
team member. A Provo official provided the city's Olympic pins and
colorful
magazines with beautiful pictures of the area. Children wrote letters
of
friendship.
Arnoldsen found the players' names on the Internet and personalized the
Valentine's cards, then placed $20 in each.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan had lost 7-0 to Canada on Monday. While they lost
another 7-0 game Wednesday at The Peaks, Arnoldsen and Hemmert laid out
the
gifts on each seat of the team bus. Arnoldsen happened upon a young
man
who
had served a two-year LDS church mission in Russia and he agreed to
translate
her letter to the team:
"We were impressed and inspired by the obstacles you overcame to come to
the
Olympics," Arnoldsen wrote. "We wanted you to have
something to remember
your
time here."
It was signed, "From your American friends."
The first player onto the bus was goalie Natalya Trunova. Her face was
blotchy from crying over the team's second lopsided loss. She found
Arnoldsen's letter and read it, then began to sob and shake. She went back
into the building to bring out her teammates, who were overwhelmed.
"We were very grateful to get the gifts," Trunova said through a
translator
Friday after making 48 saves in a 4-1 loss to Russia. "We've
been grateful
for the cheering of the crowds. It made our day to get those gifts, to
know
there were people happy to see us and have us here."
The team's coach, Alexandr Maltsev, confirmed that the women's program,
making its first Olympic appearance, has a limited budget and no corporate
sponsors. Trunova, who managed to bring just $30 to the Olympics,
mentioned
that the team's Olympic uniforms had barely arrived in time.
Arnoldsen's concern for 25 people from the other side of the world struck
a
chord of international goodwill, said Natalya Yakovchuk, who scored
Kazakhstan's only Olympic goal on Friday.
"I'm glad to have this opportunity to thank the citizens of America for
the
exceedingly warm reception, excellent hospitality, the way they treat
our
team, which is especially wonderful because we're not known as the best
team," Yakovchuk said. "Thank you on behalf of our entire team."
Said Maltsev, "I'm honored the team touched the heart of the people here."
Randall, like Arnoldsen, was uncomfortable with the idea that a reporter
knew
about the good deed.
"We wanted to extend our friendship because we thought they were young and
poor and beat up and needed friends," Randall said. "We have a lot here,
so
it's kind of nice to share. And we're grateful BYU came
through."
Hemmert is grateful to have worked as a volunteer with Arnoldsen.
"This is what the Olympics are all about," he said. "Shannon is just
incredible. She deserves a gold medal." He believes the generosity of
spirit
displayed by Arnoldsen's band of good-doers is regularly
exhibited in Utah
Said Hemmert, "I don't know if it would happen anywhere else -- hopefully
it
would -- but it does happen here."
==============================
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