Packing hygiene kits with the Utah Delegation

Utah House Speaker Becky Lockhart and others assist at the Utah delegation humanitarian project on Monday.

With tropical storm/hurricane Isaac crossing the Gulf of Mexico, the schedule for the Republican National Convention was abbreviated today, but that doesn’t mean Utah’s delegates weren’t busy. This morning, after a breakfast honoring Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican Party organized a humanitarian service project for delegates packing hygiene kits for use in any areas affected by the Isaac storm system.

“When we heard about hurricane Isaac, we decided to turn a negative into a positive,” said Thomas Wright, Utah Republican Party Chairman. Although it’s become something of a tradition for Utah Republicans to do a service project during the national convention–they did one in St. Paul in 2008, too–Wright said that the delegates planned on assembling back to school kits for children in need later in the week and only threw together this additional project in the last few days. The materials in the kits were donated by Utah business leader Fred Lampropoulous and Merit Medical.

Including toothpaste, toothbrushes, towels, soap, and other sundry items, the kits were quickly assembled by volunteers that included Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in a t-shirt, several legislators in dressed down to work, Speaker Rebecca Lockhart with her sleeves rolled up, and, in addition to the members of the Utah delegation, members of the Arizona, California and Hawaii delegations who dropped in to help. Energy was high, and some delegates broke out in an

impromptu and slightly off-key version of the BYU fight song (a version that Chairman Wright, a Ute, said was “out-of-order”). Later, a member of the Hawaii delegation led the room in “God Bless America.”

The kits are to be given to LDS Charities locally and, with Isaac shifting from a tropical storm to a potentially category 2 hurricane as it approaches the Gulf coast near New Orleans, may even be distributed later this week.

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