Kansas City, Mo. ? Many Kansas and Missouri families got their Christmas wish this weekend, as area National Guard units returned home for the holiday before going to Iraq.

A bus carrying 54 Kansas National Guard members from Fort Bliss, Texas, arrived Sunday at the armory in Lenexa, Kan.

“This is the first time in a long time we’ll have a white Christmas,” Capt. Chuck Leivan said.

The Guardsmen’s homecoming was one of two Sunday in the Kansas City area. In Belton, Mo., 35 members of an Army Reserve civil affairs unit arrived on a bus from Fort Bragg, N.C.

The homecomings were covered by contributions from Kansas and Missouri residents. They raised about $160,000 in cash and other contributions to help hundreds of active-duty soldiers from both states spend an unexpected holiday leave at home.

Cathy McGaughey of Kansas City Baptist Temple, which led the fundraising efforts that brought the Missouri reservists home, said the homecoming trips worked out better than they could have.

“We were lucky,” she said. “We thought about having them fly instead, but they would have gone through Chicago and been delayed at O’Hare.”

Soldiers from two units – the 1st Battalion, 161st Field Artillery from Kansas and the 418th Civil Affairs Battalion from Missouri – lacked the travel expenses to make the trip home. But residents and business leaders in the two states stepped in and raised the money.

Nearly 140 soldiers from the 161st Field Artillery arrived in Wichita, Kan., from Texas on Sunday.

“We’re very thankful for the community, and it’s great to get this kind of support,” said Sgt. Kevin Boese, who was in the group that arrived in Wichita. “It’s our last time to be with (our families) for a year.”

Overall, Kansans raised about $146,000 for homecomings for more than 400 Guard members from cities in Kansas, including Garden City, Dodge City, Liberal, Wichita and Lenexa.

More was raised than needed to bring the Guard members home, so the remaining money will be spent on helping families of Guard members with financial problems caused by deployments.