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By PENNY FLETCHER
penny@observernews.net
SUN CITY CENTER — Alice Fry needs a reliable driver and she needs one now.
She also needs about 300 more pillows.
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| Penny Fletcher Photo
Alice Fry of Sun City Center needs help to meet her goal of 500 small soft pillows for a unit of military personnel serving in Afghanistan. Several church groups are now helping, but still, all the personnel in the unit will not receive one if they don’t keep coming in. Her other problem is that she recently lost her driver and needs a reliable person going near Ft. Bragg, N.C. to deliver them to her daughter who works on the base by Oct. 28 so they can be added to the shipment going from the base to those fighting overseas as a holiday present. The pillows are a welcome comfort to soldiers sleeping on the ground, often fully clothed and in their boots, with ammunition at hand. |
Recently Alice found out from her daughter, Susan, who works as a civilian employee at Ft. Bragg, N.C., while her husband is stationed there, that soldiers fighting in Afghanistan often sleep on the ground with their heads resting on folded clothes from their backpacks.
“When Susan first called and asked if there was any way I could take on this project, I said I didn’t know,” Alice told me Oct 5 at the Sun City Center home she and her husband Bill have lived in for about one year. “When my children were small, I made all their clothes. I knew these little pillows would be easy to make. But 500? Could I take that on?”
Sitting in a pew at Prince of Peace Catholic Church where she is a member later that week she looked around and thought, “Why, I’ll bet a lot of these people are veterans, or have children and grandchildren in the military. When I got home I called Susan back and gave her my answer.”
In a way, she had known it would be “yes” from the beginning but wasn’t sure how she could accomplish it.
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| Alice’s garage is filled with boxes to be put together, plastic bags of pillows to be packed and material for making more pillows herself when she isn’t too busy receiving those made by others and packing them for military personnel fighting overseas. Penny Fletcher photo |
“The amount- 500- was for a certain group, like a unit. What if 200 of these men and women didn’t receive one? I would hate to see that happen,” she said.
So Alice decided it would be all or nothing and set to work at her sewing machine.
The only directions she was given by the people in charge of sending items overseas from Ft. Bragg was that when making them, she needed to consider the fact they would be stuffed in backpacks and carried, and would be exposed to water and dirt.
Right away she envisioned them: Small, just the size to hold a head; about 12-by-9 inches; stuffed with lightweight foam and covered with a soft material (no cotton because of a problem drying) in dark-colors that would be comfortable- not scratchy- and wouldn’t easily show dirt.
Some of the ones she’s made are covered in polyester materials. Others in velour-like fleece. Many are mixed shades of blue; others navy. Some are a little more feminine for woman soldiers. Purples, dark greens and grays, browns and blacks were stuffed in plastic bags and boxes in various places in her house and garage.
“What a big difference such a little item can make in a military person’s life,” she said to me at her kitchen table. “Thinking of all they do for us, keeping us safe and free, and all they want is a place to lay their head.”
The first item on the “wish list” from Susan had been hand sanitizer, but she called back almost immediately and said that had been taken care of already because of the fear of swine flu. “The very next thing on the ‘most requested list’ was a pillow.”
According to Alice, they’re easy to make. You just cut the foam, use material scraps and sew the sides together.
“I had 25 of the nicest pillows delivered by a man who didn’t even give me his name,” she said. “He just said, ‘Here, I made these myself. I have a sewing machine and I wanted to put it to good use.’ This isn’t just a project women can do for men. It is a project both men and women can do for all soldiers, male and female.”
Just this past week Alice contacted Redeemer Lutheran and United Community churches. But time is running out. If she cannot find a driver, she will have to ship the items by Oct. 20. And she was told there is no longer a special rate to bases in the States even if they are being repacked there to go overseas as part of larger shipments.
“Besides, if I have to ship, then there would be money involved. I don’t want to have to ask people for money, and 500 pillows is a lot for us to ship ourselves. What we need is a person headed that way, or with connections to some kind of trucking, who wants to help these men in the field.”
Anyone who wants to help Alice meet her deadline is asked to call her at (813) 633-2090.
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