“When we send a box to the soldiers, there’s always a letter from the Hillcrest Guardian Angels explaining who has helped,” Spaulding says. “We provide names and addresses in case the soldiers want to write back. A soldier wrote a letter that said, ‘Thank you for the toothbrushes. I’m using one to brush my teeth and one to clean the sand out of my gun.’ The boys at the school went crazy with that. They said, ‘We need to get more toothbrushes!’
“When we did that collection in 2005, we set a goal of 125 toothbrushes. The week before Thanksgiving, a teacher called and said, ‘We have 1,992 toothbrushes. The boys said they didn’t want those guns to jam.’ When we packed the boxes in the first week of December, we had 4,000 toothbrushes.”
The response was similar from St. Matthew School when American soldiers overseas requested stuffed animals. The soldiers use the stuffed animals to give to the children in the countries where they serve—as a way of showing they care about the people in those countries.
St. Matthew students went to their rooms and their closets and donated about 3,000 stuffed animals one Christmas.
Students at St. Pius X School embraced a plan to send the soldiers Girl Scout cookies in the spring, leading an effort that consistently collects thousands of boxes of the cookies. And children from St. Luke School and St. Monica School have also written cards and collected items for the soldiers.
“What big hearts they have,” Spaulding says of the children. “I’m just so proud of them.”
Her pride extends to the soldiers.
‘Don’t let the bad guys get you’
“I started the project to help our soldiers, support them and let them know they’re not forgotten,” Spaulding says. “They’re our soldiers, they’re far away and they’re faced with death every day. This is just our way of thanking them for the job they’re doing for us. It’s such a small gesture on our part to let them know we’re thinking of them and caring for them.”
The caring continues at St. Simon School, where teachers raised about $800 in February to help offset the considerable shipping charges involved in mailing the boxes around the world.
The care packages that were sent this week to the soldiers are the shipment that Spaulding calls the “Sweetheart Mailing.” Each package includes Girl Scout cookies and belated Valentine cards written by the students—cards that often come with the message, “God is watching you” and “Don’t let the bad guys get you.”
“I think we did well collecting everything,” says John Morrissey, a fifth-grade student. “I hope they like it.”
Sometime in the next few weeks, soldiers will open those care packages and know that someone is thinking of them, and thanking them for what they are doing.
“It’s a service project with faith, and a service project with heart,” says Laura Legault, one of the fifth-grade teachers at St. Simon School. “It means the world to us.”
Printed with permission from The Criterion, newspaper for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Ind.