VFW Ladies Auxiliary Sends Care Packages to Troops

Serving overseas in the military is unquestionably a difficult job that takes many U.S. troops away from family and friends for extended periods of time. But  some lucky service men and women will be receiving thoughtful gifts from home thanks to a local group of volunteers.

For the past three years the VFW Post 1926 Ladies Auxiliary has collected various items including food, personal care items, and colorful pictures made by local children to send to service men and women as a sign of gratitude for their service.

"Some of our troops over there don't have anyone to depend on and send them letters or anything while they are overseas," Ladies Auxiliary President Janice Higley said.

Higley was first inspired to organize the collection when her grandson Patrick Higley and her nephew Matt Higley were serving in Afghanistan. Both have since returned but this year another grandson, Zachary Higley will be deployed to serve overseas.

At least once each year the local group has collected requested items from local businesses and individual donors and ships the care packages to Afghanistan.

This year the group placed donation boxes at , town hall, the Company main station, the , , , and .

"The people of Simsbury and businesses have been so good about giving," Higley said. And this year the group collected more items than it has ever done in the past and has shipped 28 boxes of items.

The annual collection began on Mother's Day and ended when the boxes were shipped on June 7.

"We try to do a collection every year and send it overseas," Higley said. The first year the group held the collection twice, once in the spring and once in late fall in time for the holidays. This year Higley hopes to hold the second fall collection again.

When the group first decided to send the care packages, they contacted servicemen from Simsbury to find out what the troops needed and sent the boxes directly to them to be distributed among fellow service members.

This year the boxes were shipped to Michael Vaughn, Mate Testerman, and John Krause, members of the National Guard Medical Service Corp, according to Higley.

The boxes sent this year also included cookies donated by local Girl Scouts, pictures that were colored by local children during this year's Memorial Day Parade, and school supplies for Afghan children that will be attending a new school this year.

"We would really like to send something to everyone but unfortunately we just can't do that," Higley said.

This year, Dyno Nobel stepped up to take care of the added cost of sending all 28 boxes.