Postal workers deliver for charity
The Sgt. Schafer Post Office raised $25,000 for United Way affiliates.
By BETH N. GREY, Times Correspondent
Published February 9, 2008
SPRING HILL - Employees at the Sgt. Michael Schafer Post Office boiled up a big kettle of stone soup with a record amount of cold cash. They celebrated Friday by adding cake to the menu.
Judy Miller, supervisor of customer service, explained.
During the Civil War when rations ran out, soldiers would wander about with their soup kettles into which they'd placed a stone in a water bath. People asked what they were making. "Stone soup, but it might be better with a carrot in it." A carrot was donated. The next inquiry might have produced a potato.
"If each just gave a little, everybody benefitted," Miller pointed out.
When mail carrier Sabrina Perdue took on coordination of the Suncoast Combined Federal Campaign, an affiliate of United Way of Tampa Bay, she started with stone soup. And nearly everybody gave, some a little, some a lot.
The local effort yielded more than $25,000, earning the post office a double gold award, the highest recognition by CFC.
"This is the No. 1 post office for all they raised," said Tony McKenna, Suncoast campaign director, who celebrated with the employees Friday.
The Suncoast campaign reaches 280 postal units and an additional 201 federal sites in 10 counties. Giving by some 80 employees at the Schafer post office put it in the top 10 percent of all federal donors, McKenna noted.
After a presentation by Hernando Pasco Hospice gift planner Leslie Taylor last fall, the postal workers voted to earmark $15,000 of what they would raise to go to the hospice. Jane Freeman, agency community relations director, called it an "unprecedented amount."
The remaining $10,000 will be apportioned to Habitat for Humanity of Hernando County and 27 other charities, some designated by the givers, McKenna said. "We're trying to get the money back into the local community," he added.
As for singling out the hospice, Miller explained, "Everybody here has been touched by Hospice. I could never repay them for what they did for my family." When her father was dying of lung cancer, she said, hospice workers not only came into the home and cared for his medical needs, but provided for the family's emotional needs, later grief counseling.
"We care for the whole family," acknowledged Janet Ware, hospice director of development.
Added Chris Bredbenner, the agency's vice president for planning and development, "We reach out to anyone in the community. There's counseling and support. There's no cost; we do it through your generosity," he told the assembled employees. "You did it from the heart."
Douglas Hearl, a mail sorter, was the largest donor at $1,000. "I used hospice for Mom last year," he said. "It takes special people to do what they do. They get attached to their patients and the patients get attached to them."
McKenna praised Perdue, the campaign coordinator, saying she boosted the post office to the ranks of Publix supermarkets and Raymond James Financial Services for donations to United Way.
Perdue never allowed anyone to forget about the campaign. She followed up the stone soup fundraising launch with a lunch of real soup in bread bowls, donated by a bakery. She organized a griddle breakfast. She tapped local merchants for prizes - fishing tackle, golf outings, more - to award generous givers.
Last year, the postal workers raised $22,000 and they were determined to top it. "This amount of money is unbelievable," Miller said of the new record. "The employees here have big hearts."
And so read the script on the cake on Friday: "Spring Hill Post Office Gives from the Heart."
Beth Gray can be contacted at graybethn@earthlink.net.