Mt. Lebanon lawyer Douglas Hottle is across the globe in a land where Christmas is not widely celebrated, but that's not stopping the Army reservist serving in Iraq from participating in the season of giving.

Hottle, a judge advocate general serving with the 372nd Engineering Group in the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad, is leading an effort to get people from his hometown area to donate school supplies to pupils in Iraq.

He's getting the word out through the Downtown law firm of Meyer Unkovic & Scott, where he is a partner, and through friends such as lawyer Alfonso Frioni, whose Mt. Lebanon Boy Scout Troop is taking up a collection.

Hottle was part of a group of soldiers who, in October, distributed $75,000 worth of school supplies to Iraqi children. Those supplies had been collected largely from Iowa by Maj. Chuck Larson, of Cedar Rapids, a fellow JAG who is an Iowa state senator.

Larson founded the collection project under the name Operation Iraqi Hope.

Through e-mail messages, Hottle said he moved to start his own collection after the October distributions wiped out the stockpile that Larson had collected.

"The week was an incredible experience. I have never experienced anything more rewarding than to watch the Iraqi kids open their sacks of school supplies," Hottle wrote. He said it was especially gratifying to see girls in the classrooms, because, under the rule of Saddam Hussein, girls were not permitted to attend school.

Hottle said one of the boys he met asked him to send home photos of Iraqi pupils to America so that American children "could see that Iraqi kids like Americans."

Hottle wrote that some of the schools he visited while handing out supplies "were nothing more than mud huts and dirt floors, no roofs, no electricity and no running water." Some of those schools will be rebuilt as part of the work that Hottle is doing in Iraq.

In addition to their JAG duties, Hottle and Larson are part of the Civil Military Operations group, which, along with other military groups, is responsible for funding, supervising and inspecting civil construction projects.

As part of that, the group is responsible for the construction of eight schools, two water filtration plants, a veterinary clinic, three city council buildings and an electrical power grid.

The school supplies that are being collected will be used at the new schools and to restock some of the schools supplied in October.

"I have been amazed and proud at the generosity of people back home, most of whom I have never met, who willingly and graciously have been sending, and continue to send, boxes of school supplies," Hottle wrote.

The school supplies needed by Operation Iraqi Hope include pencils, pencil sharpeners, pens, notebooks, three-ring binder paper, scissors, glue, erasers, crayons, markers and backpacks. The donations should not carry any religious statements or images of dogs or pigs.

Medical items needed for the schools are bandages, suture removal kits, drapes, gauze, antibiotic creams, anti-fungal creams and over-the-counter medications.

Donations can be sent to Operation Iraqi Hope, Capt. Douglas M. Hottle, 372nd Engineer Group, LSA Anaconda, APO AE, 09391, or by contacting Lori Alderman, director of client services at Meyer Unkovic & Scott, at 412-456-2854.

In a similar effort, 18 youth group members of Bower Hill Community Church and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church assembled 44 kits of school supplies and one box of sports equipment for a collection drive known as Operation Iraqi Children.

The boxes included letters and photos for the children and troops and they will be distributed by American soldiers when they arrive in Iraq.

Actor Gary Sinese and author Laura Hillenbrand ("Seabiscuit") founded Operation Iraqi Children to help promote goodwill and rebuild Iraq. The local project was sponsored by the Mission Committee, of Bower Hill Community Church.