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What was once Milton and Linda McGehee's dining room is now a makeshift warehouse with 600 pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling, each containing $40 worth of gifts.

Milton McGehee, who has organized and collected more than $20,000 of goods to deliver for Christmas to patients in Walter Reed Army Medical Center's amputee ward, says he's just the steward of other people's kindness.

"Here we're supposed to be going through some really hard [economic] times and people are penny-pinching, but they're not penny-pinching for the troops," he said.

Donations to the Hyattsville couple have dramatically increased this Christmas season after word got out about his efforts, and he's put together more than four times as many gift boxes as last year.

The College Park Moose Lodge started the effort about four years ago, the organization's administrator Jimmie Cornell said, but this year Milton McGehee, the lodge's community service chairman, expanded it by reaching out to numerous churches, groups and individuals.

"It's something he's taken on, a pet project of his," Cornell said. "He does a great job with it."

Milton McGehee is quick to point out where the pizza boxes came from—Three Brothers—and lists off the names of those who crocheted blankets, cut checks, baked cookies and paid for a delivery truck rental. Five churches and other organizations have also pitched in.

The boxes are filled with items such as cookies, Beanie Babies, toiletries, movies and magazines, and each one of the 600 boxes comes with a personalized Christmas card, hand-written by Linda McGehee.

Laurel resident Susan Harrison baked cookies for the couple's efforts.

"They're very passionate about it, and Mr. McGehee gets so excited about it every time I talk to him on the phone," she said. "You can tell they really care about what they're doing."

Milton McGehee turned his basement into an assembly line of boxes and categorized items. He said it takes about five hours to organize and put together 20 boxes.

Linda McGehee works part time at Hyattsville's St. Mark's the Evangelist School, and Milton McGehee is a retired meat cutter who spends most of his time on the project. Aside from the donations they get from groups and individuals, the couple has spent about $1,500 of their own money on the project.

"If two people in Hyattsville could do this, many other people could do this to help the wounded veterans in many other hospitals," he said.

Laurel resident Eva Edwards donated 500 Beanie Babies she had collected over the years to the troops and their family members. She worried about the large donation being too much since it would have to be stored in the McGehee's home, but Milton McGehee asked for even more, she said.

"People like that, who knows why, but they're almost a magnet for goodness," Edwards said. "And other people just see it in them."