Brooklyn Kiwanis providing soldier packages

Jackson, Michigan, Citizen-Patriot

http://blog.mlive.com/citpat/2008/08/brooklyn_kiwanis_providing_sol.html

This month, Brooklyn Kiwanis marks its fifth year of providing care packages to soldiers serving overseas.

The Brooklyn Kiwanis Soldier Project, spearheaded by chairwoman Julie Watrous, solicits donations and pays shipping costs to send care packages overseas all year long with the exception of the few summer months.

In a recent collaboration with state Rep. Mike Simpson, D-Blackman Township, Kiwanis provided 46 donation-filled boxes to the 325th Army Combat Support Hospital based in Al-Asad, Iraq.

Simpson enlisted donation help from many area businesses.

“Donating items requested by this hospital unit is a great way for our community to show appreciation for what the men and women in the armed forces do for us,” Simpson said.

Kiwanis members added even more donations and picked up the US$500 shipping tab to mail care packages to the hospital unit’s Staff Sgt. Thomas Hartley.

“I was blessed to have the opportunity to actually talk with Thomas,” said Watrous. “He’s a wonderful young man who couldn’t thank us enough for providing things they could really use at the hospital.”

Brooklyn Kiwanis organizes various fundraisers to continue its soldier project and is always accepting donations to the cause, said Watrous.

“We do whatever it takes to keep this alive for the soldiers and people in our community have been right behind us, offering their support,” she said.

If you’d like to help with the project, call Julie Watrous at 517-315-1039.