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Girl Scouts from Lordstown prepare packages for troops
The Vindicator ( Youngstown)
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First Place Bank and Mahoning Valley residents raised $13,956 for the United Service Organization of Northeast Ohio. Bank employees and Girl Scout Troop 80129 gathered Wednesday at the Boardman location to pack food, health-care items and letters into boxes to be shipped to soldiers in Afghanistan.
By Robert Guttersohn
Boardman
Girl Scouts from Lordstown’s Troop 80129 stood by a truck in the parking lot of First Place Bank filled with 60 large boxes bound for Afghanistan.
As the 10th anniversary of the war moves closer, the bank turned to its employees and the community to send soldiers food, health-care products and letters.
Each bank branch set out a box to collect items. The community responded by filling each box to the brim.
“It feels really good to be doing this for the soldiers,” said one Scout, Addison Wilson, 9. “They’re giving us something, and we’re giving them something. It’s like we’re paying them back.”
The Lordstown troop members helped collect items and helped to package the goods. They said they were proud of what they helped put together and plan on doing it again.
Steve Lewis, the Warren-based bank’s CEO, said he talked to various employees, seeing if anyone had a personal connection with soldiers serving.
“One thing that amazed me is how everybody is connected to somebody who’s in Afghanistan,” Lewis said. “Neighbors or family, it was incredible how everyone was connected.”
Employees with children went to their teachers and asked classes to write letters to soldiers.
“It was amazing what these kids put down on paper,” said the bank’s marketing director, Debra Bish, who was moved emotionally by some of the letters.
On top of the gift packages, the bank and community donated $13,956 to the North Ohio United Service Organizations.
“This means so much to [the military],” said Dianne Clark, USO volunteer for eight years who accepted the check. “That will go a long way at getting a lot more out to our military members.”
Clark said the money will more than pay for the cost of shipping gift boxes and mini-Christmas trees to Afghanistan in December. “They really look forward to [packages] with them being so far from home,” Clark said.
She meets frequently with returning soldiers.
It means a lot “to know there are people thinking about them and that they know they are there,” Clark said.
She and her son, who cannot serve in the military because he is disabled, feel that they are doing from here whatever they can for soldiers.
“We can serve this way,” she said.