Lakeside woman sends magazines to soldiers

By JACOB DORAN / Bigfork Eagle

When Kim Jones of Bigfork began recruiting local families at her church, last November, to adopt a soldier and send letters and care packages to her son's company in Iraq, Donna Chase of Lakeside was quick to sign up.

Todd Jones, 22, had been stationed in Fort Stewart with his company, which is part of the 3rd Infantry Division's 4th Brigade, prior to being sent to Iraq. In November, the company was mobilized to Forward Operating Base Kalsu, which lies between Baghdad and Karbala, and his mother wanted to ensure that each of the soldiers would have care packages in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A number of families from Jones' church, Crossroads Christian Church in Bigfork, volunteered to help out, including Doug and Donna Chase. Other churches, schools and businesses soon joined the effort.

The Chases adopted Spc. Andy Vitkovitsky, and like other adoptive families wanted to know what kind of things the soldiers most wanted. Soon, they were sending the most requested item, chocolate, to their adopted soldier.

However, the soldiers desired more than a quick fix for their sweet cravings. They also expressed a common desire for magazines and other reading material to relax with when they were not on duty.

Seeing an opportunity to provide a needed service to Vitkovitsky and the other soldiers, Donna began asking people to donate magazines. Then, about a month ago, she set up a number of collection boxes around Lakeside to see what kind of a response she might get.

"It was awesome," Donna said. "We were filling boxes like crazy."

After a successful run in Lakeside, she decided to try placing collection boxes in Kalispell. The boxes filled so quickly that she discovered she needed to empty them about every other day.

At first, she thought she would simply take whatever she collected and send it to the soldiers who had been adopted. A friend who was stationed in Iraq directed her to send the magazines to the brigade chaplain, who would know how best to make them available to the soldiers.

To date, Donna has shipped 42 boxes, each holding about 30 magazines. However, the chaplain informed her that she should send the majority of the boxes to the chaplains under him. After e-mailing the other chaplains, they too began to request magazines for the soldiers in their companies.

"It wasn't like we planned it that way," Donna said. "It just kind of happened. It didn't really take too long to get going. Once we got started on it, it just took off.

"There are lots of boxes on the way, but they are not getting them by airmail anymore. The boxes are going into Kuwait and then getting trucked into Iraq, so they probably just started to receive the shipments if they have gotten any of them at all."

In addition to the 42 boxes that have already been sent, more than 60 boxes are already packed and ready to go out. That does not include the other 15 boxes or so that are still being packed or what is still waiting to be gathered from the collection points. Those boxes will be mailed as soon as Donna can raise money for postage.

"What we're doing is making sure that the boxes are packed, sealed and addressed so that we can send them out as soon as we get postage," Donna said. "Even though we have boxes ready to go and boxed up more over the weekend, we can't send any more out until we get postage. What we really need is for people to donate for postage, which they can do by simply writing a check made out to the USPS.

"The boxes are moving, but not fast enough. We're hoping that people will want to contribute, not just magazines and reading material, but also postage. I think that once the word gets out there we'll get a response because people have a good heart for our soldiers."

To make it easy for people to donate postage, Donna and Doug have placed postage slips with information about how to do so. The cost to ship a single box comes to about $8.95. Those who wish to contribute can donate postage for a single box or any amount and send it to SOLDIERS, care of P.O. Box 909, Lakeside, Mont. 59922, payable to USPS.

Currently, about 3500 soldiers will benefit from the reading material being sent. However, that number may continue to grow as more and more chaplains ask to receive shipments of magazines and other materials.

The last chaplain to contact Donna serves a battalion of more than 900 soldiers, for whom he has started a coffee house, where the soldiers can relax. Within the coffee house, he also wanted to put together a small library so that the infantrymen could read while they drink their coffee—a favorite pastime for soldiers during their off hours.

Since 98 percent of the infantrymen in his battalion are men and only two percent are women, their specific needs tend more toward materials that would be of interest to men and perhaps fewer women's magazines.

However, he also expressed a need for coffee syrups, which are difficult to acquire in Iraq. The soldiers go through about ten bottles of the syrup each month, and he requested information from anyone who knew a supplier who might be able to ship syrups to the battalion.

"Who knows what we'll be expanding into next," Donna remarked. "We may look into something like that in the future, but right now we're focusing on any reading material or crossword puzzle books, since the soldiers need something to take their minds off of what they did all day.

"The chaplains who have e-mailed us say that the soldiers are so appreciative that people are thinking of them. It means so much to them that people here remember them and want to do something to help them. I get excited when I even think about it, and I'm just having a blast with it. It's very rewarding to be involved with something that will help lift our troops."

Presently, collection boxes have been set up in Lakeside at the Lakeside Chapel, Blacktail Grocery, the West Shore Library and the Post Office. A fifth collection box will go up later this week at Flathead Bank. These are in addition to the five sites that have been established in Kalispell.