TREATS 4 OUR TROOPS
NO TRICKS:
ARLINGTON MOM COLLECTS TREATS FOR TROOPS
The first week in November, Yael Roggen's
living room resembles a candy store. Bags and
bags of Kit Kats, M&Ms, lollipops, bubble gum,
Skittles, Hershey's, Reese's and Tootsie Rolls
cover the couch and end tables. It's not just that her four children are ardent
trick-or-treaters. Most of the candy shows up on Roggen's doorstep AFTER Halloween, when friends, neighbors and even strangers
drop off their leftover, surplus candy. Roggen boxes it up and sends it to the
troops as part of a program she's named Treats 4 Our Troops.
Roggen began the program three years ago when one of her
friends was a soldier serving in Iraq. Roggen was able to support him by
keeping in touch and sending care packages to his
unit, but she wanted to do more. She started by helping soldiers and veterans
closer to home, visiting with them and their families at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In 2007, she began
collecting candy for soldiers, both here and overseas.
" I looked at all the extra candy after Halloween and
thought it would be a great way to thank our deployed troops and their families
who sacrifice so much," she said.
The first year it was just a few bags of candy. Last year,
as friends told friends, in 2008 she collected 300 pounds of candy that she sent
directly to deployed troops and to injured servicemen and women and their
families at Walter Reed. In 2009 3,000 pounds of candy was collected.
This year, as more friends tell more friends, she is set to
collect even more treats, with word-of-mouth spreading to businesses,
synagogues, churches and scouting troops. Even her chiropractor is putting
together a care package.
Roggen, who was an event planner before she had kids, plans
to turn Treats 4 Our Troops into a non-profit organization in the years ahead.
For now, it's a grass-roots project she runs out of her home with the help of
friends and neighbors, who provide drop-off points and help with the boxing and
mailing of the treats. She collects donations for shipping (It's $12.50 to ship
an APO/FPO "care package" box and she financed most of the shipping
herself last year -- something she's not sure she can afford to do again). She
collects packing tape. She collects names of people who have friends or family
who are deployed, so she can get the treats to their units. Mostly, she
collects candy.
The troops appreciate it. "Opening a box full of
Halloween candy put a smile on our faces all the way in Afghanistan,"
says one note she got from a sergeant in Kalagush.
"Working such long hours with such hard working
Marines, it was nice to feel appreciated and get the treats from the local
community," wrote a Lance Corporal in Camp
LeJeune, N.C.
"I know it's just candy to most of us, but such a small
gesture goes a long way, especially for people who are so far from home."
But it brings a little sweetness -- 3000 pounds of it, and
counting -- to people who could really use it.