Florida Catholic | Care Packages

Care packages to bring taste of home to adopted troops

YVONNE MARTINEZ | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 11.23.07

Tyler DeSando, a first grader at St. Mary Catholic School in Rockledge makes his contribution to the "mini-commissary." The items are headed to a group of adopted troops in Iraq.
YVONNE MARTINEZ | FC

ROCKLEDGE | Schools throughout the Diocese of Orlando are making special care packages for America’s military men and women.

Cards, messages and care packages are being sent from St. Anthony Parish and School in Lakeland. Melbourne Central Catholic is also planning to send care packages for Christmas.

“Our kids are making Christmas cards for the troops,” said Principal Lynn Abboud of Sacred Heart Catholic School in New Smyrna Beach. “One of our school mothers coordinates care packages and she will pick up our cards and send them with the packages going overseas.”

At St. Mary School in Rockledge, the science lab became a “mini-commissary,” complete with personal hygiene essentials such as toothpaste, deodorant and shaving cream as well as the all-American snack favorites of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts, M&M’s and beef jerky. Stacked up and ready for packaging, the items collected by students will be sent to Lt. Jared Jacobs and Lt. Col Kerrye Glass, and their respective units in Iraq.

Jacobs is a squadron pilot for the VR-52 Naval Air Station in Willow Grove, Pa. He was deployed in July on a special assignment in Fallujah, Iraq, as the II MEF G-3 air operations coordinator with the II Marine Expeditionary Force. He coordinates about 200 missions per day for ground and air support. His wife is pregnant with twins, and he hopes to return from his tour of duty in time for the long-awaited arrival.

Lt. Col. Glass is a 46-year-old Army veteran who is serving his second tour in Iraq. He grew up in Brevard County and graduated from the University of Central Florida. He was a principal at St. Thomas Aquinas School in St. Cloud, before being deployed to Bosnia in 2001 where he served for one year. He was also a dean at Bishop Moore High School in Orlando for six months before being redeployed to Iraq, where he runs a 10-member military transition team that lives with and trains 900 Iraqi troops in the 6th Battalion of the Iraqi Army.

School Principal Nancie Rowan spearheaded the effort to adopt both men and their units because she wanted to do something special to honor the men and women overseas. Above and beyond the collection of food items and essentials, they raised more than $600 to purchase phone cards for the troops. The money was raised through a special “no uniform” holiday where each student paid a dollar to wear anything red, white and blue.

Schoolchildren also brought in their leftover Halloween candy to give to a local dentist, who paid the children $1 per pound of candy. “It’s wonderful,” Rowan said. “We’ve had a great response.”

Third-grader Taisse Yang, 8, brought in some powdered Gatorade for the units along with the rest of her classmates, including Chris O’Brien, 8, who were all given a list of items to bring. “I want to thank them for fighting for us,” O’Brien said. “It’s exciting to help them out because they’re helping us by fighting for us.” Yang, who has two cousins in Iraq, added she also thanks all the men and women deployed and wants them to “be careful.”

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