OGDEN -- Being home for the holidays is something active-duty military members don't take for granted.
On Thursday night, about 300 Hill Air Force Base families with at least one member on an Air Force deployment gathered at Megaplex 13 at The Junction for a night of holiday fun.
Becky O'Dell, who lives in Ogden Valley and works as a Farmers Insurance agent in Clearfield, just a few miles west of the base, organized the event with help from the base's Family Readiness Center.
O'Dell's husband is a contractor at Hill, working in the office for the F-22.
"With my husband working on base and me working so close, you become familiar with a lot of these people and what they have to sacrifice during the holidays," O'Dell said.
"When your spouse deploys, it's like, all of a sudden, you're a single parent, so I wanted to do something to help them out."
When O'Dell heard the FRC at Hill had only $1,500 for an entire year of events, she got on the phone and contacted everyone she could think of. Plenty of her resources came through.
The Larry H. Miller Group donated a banquet room and a theater at the Megaplex 13, Coca-Cola provided drinks, Costco provided pizza, and Winegar's Grocery provided salads.
The Ogden Fire Department also provided a fire truck to take Santa Claus to the theater with a bag full of presents.
"I've had a lot of folks step up and help us out," O'Dell said.
"When I approached people, you could tell they were thinking, 'Oh no, what is this woman going to ask me for?' But when I told them what it was for, they immediately wanted to help."
Ann Maglio, whose husband is deployed in Saudi Arabia, said the evening is a good way to show children who have deployed parents that they are not alone.
"It's good for these kids to be around other children who are in the same boat as them," she said. "To give them a chance to interact with peers who can understand exactly what they are going through is a big deal."
In preparing for the event, O'Dell said she received much-needed help from the "Hearts Apart" organization at Hill, a division of the FRC that provides services and plans activities for families going through a deployment.
"Deployments are starting to get longer, and families are spending more time apart," said Terri Davis, who works with the Family Readiness Center at Hill and has a husband deployed in Iraq.
"While these airmen are out there fighting for us, they shouldn't have to be wondering if their family back home is being taken care of."
O'Dell said her No. 1 goal in organizing the event was to offer a little peace of mind to the families, even if it was for just one night.
"That's the whole purpose of this evening. Hopefully, these families can come here for a few hours and just forget about the anxiety of having a loved one gone during the holidays."
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