Operation Shower, a Long Island nonprofit organization, provides baby showers for expectant moms of military families to help ease the burden of deployment.

When Sergeant Holly M. Anaya, 24, of East Meadow, NY was pregnant with her second son Josiah last year, she, like most expectant mothers, could have benefited from baby shower gifts. But Sgt. Anaya is an active duty Marine with the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment in Garden City, NY, stationed far from her family in Missouri, so a shower wasn’t on the schedule. At the time, she had no idea how she was going to get the clothes, bedding, and other items new babies need.