Veterans club organizes Care Package Drive for US troops

The Veterans Club has been working hard to get people to donate to the troops overseas.

“The drive has been going on for four days. A lot of people have given very generously, and we have collected many items. One teacher dropped off $20 every day,” Veterans Club member Brian Ritchie said. “There have been a lot of donations, and those who donate are really generous.”

From students to faculty, people have been contributing towards the Veterans Club drive.

“We donated two brand new UWRF stamped game footballs,” Head Football Coach John O’Grady said, “I think a few of our players [donated towards the drive]. We have a couple of them who served in Iraq so I think they donated. This drive is a great idea, they should do a couple of them, at least, a year.”

The Veterans Club provided a list of items that they want to put in the care packages like hygiene essentials, laundry detergent and coffee with limited candy donations.

“I donated toothpaste and I thanked them for all of the service for what they did.” said Senior Jillian Peterson. “I think it’s a good thing because it makes students aware of the people serving over there and what they need. It also shows that we are supporting the people over there because donating is a way of thanking them for everything that they are doing for us and all of the sacrifices that they are making.”

One of the projects that the Veterans Club is working on is to find and help veterans in the community that are disabled or struggling financially.

“This club just got started this spring, so it is still a fairly new club, and we’re trying to come up with more ideas this year. We want to get the Veterans Club involved to help get a house built for struggling veterans,” Ritchie said, “So I’m currently trying to find a veteran that would be a good candidate for that. If we find one we would have to do a lot more fund raising to get that project going.”

The Veterans Club has been trying to get more involved in the community.

“We will probably do another social event coming up. We had one in the spring last year.  This is the big thing that we have been working on,” Vice President of Veterans Club Derek LaPlant said. “We went and cleaned up the cemetery. We want to make our club more active in the social community.”

Items that are donated to the Care Package Drive will be sent to troops that are currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“I am very grateful for the amount of stuff that we have gotten and the amount of response we have gotten,” LaPlant said. “I think that it’s a great cause and the support that we have gotten has been excellent. I think that it has been very successful and I’m sure that we’ll do it again next year.”

People can still bring donation to the Veteran’s Affair Office to be sent to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.