Sending the comforts of home

The troops will soon get surprises - 53 boxes of them.

By BETH N. GRAY, Times Correspondent
Published November 8, 2007

Stacia Struck of Legacy Properties stacks a box filled with donated items that will be delivered to troops overseas. Struck is a member of the Community Resource Council of Hernando County which was taking part in Operation Shoebox.
	[Ron Thompson | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Ron Thompson | Times] A mailing box is filled with donated supplies to be sent to soldiers overseas as part of Operation Shoebox.

SPRING HILL - Patty Lima knows well the seemingly small needs and wishes of the men and women of the military serving in Iraq. Her son, Kenneth Lima, 26, is recently home from his second tour of duty there. He'll return to the Mideast again just after Thanksgiving.

Cathie Garguilo knows, too. Her nephew, Peter Garguilo, 21, is in Iraq now.

So it came naturally to the good-hearted women to provide the minimal, but much-appreciated, luxuries of home to those on the front lines.

Lima, community outreach director at a nursing home, Tangerine Cove of Brooksville, and Garguilo, program director at senior living center Atria Evergreen Woods in Spring Hill, brought the idea of joining the nationwide effort called Operation Shoebox before the Community Resource Council of Hernando County.

"Everybody just jumped at it," said Lima.

Lima is council president, Garguilo, vice president.

Some 50 members of the council, made up of caregivers and volunteers, gathered Wednesday at Atria Evergreen Woods to pack "shoeboxes" of donated items they've collected for the troops over the past three months.

Garguilo pawed through the many bags of donations. "CDs, DVDs, sunglasses, hygiene items, cereal, candy, washcloths, sunscreen, paperback books, puzzles, snack items, basic needs, instant soups, quick snacks like oatmeal on the run," she enumerated. "So much stuff."

The items had been collected at various establishments from employees, visitors and residents. "Dennis Kout, a resident here," said Garguilo, "gave us 100 CDs, still in their wrappers."

Other donations arrived as the organizers papered the community with fliers about the effort. "Word got out through meetings," she added. "News travels."

The council hoped to have enough items to stuff 25 boxes for shipment to Iraq; they wound up filling 53 of them.

"I think that's the greatest need, the people on the front lines," Garguilo said.

"We'll pack them as full as we can," added Lima, referring to the Postal Service-supplied mailing boxes.

When Lima told her brother, John Killory, who owns a car dealership in Leesburg, what she was up to, Killory collected $2,000 in a week for donations to cover postage, at about $8 a box.

Lima added, "This is not something we're doing just for the holidays. We want to do this throughout the year."

She had already mailed a "dry run" box to a friend of her son. "And I got a call back just the other day," she said, which gave the council further encouragement to forge ahead.

Beth Gray can be contacted at graybethn@earthlink.net.

[Last modified November 7, 2007, 20:46:12]