Submitted
On behalf of disabled veterans, employees of Health Care Logistics recently “Shared the Love” and donated $1,000 each to two local military based organizations, namely a free bow hunt that has taken place every fall since 2010, and AMVETS Post 2256 that provides an afternoon of socializing, including lunch and Bingo, every other Wednesday and has done so for many years.
Proceeds for the donations came from HCL’s annual Valentine’s Day lunch auction. This event takes place at all four of HCL’s facilities including the local Circleville headquarters as well as their Galloway, Urbancrest and Grove City locations. This company-wide event provides funds from the employees to supply military care packages to soldiers of family members and friends stationed overseas.
HCL’s “Support Our Troops” military program began in December 2005 when a cookbook was published from recipes submitted by employees. The books were then sold to raise initial funds for supplies.
Since that time, HCL has served 69 soldiers representing every military branch stationed around the world including several on aircraft carriers.
They have shipped:
· 492 Regular Care Packages
· 33 Special Christmas packages
· 23 Thanksgiving packages
· 22 Fun 4thof July packages
· 34 Girl Scout cookie packages
· 72 “Operation Sweet Tooth” packages (10 lbs. of 100 custom-decorated cookies) from Piece-A-Cake Bakery in East Dundee, Illinois
· 22 Baseball Gloves with baseballs/softballs
“Even though I keep the records myself, I am amazed by our numbers,” said Sandra Alten, HCL human resources employee and military program coordinator. “That’s a lot of “home in a box,” and I have become an expert at filling every available space. Specifically, 676 care packages equaling over 8,000 lbs. of snacks and other fun and useful items delivered to grateful recipients far from home with our good wishes and prayers for their safe return.”
Alten said at one time, they were supplying care packages to 13 soldiers all at once.
“Believe me, that takes a lot of time, coordinating and commitment,” she said. “Since then the number of soldiers we regularly provide packages for has reduced. So this year I enlisted the help of Sharon Free at the Pickaway County Veterans Services Office to help find local military based organizations that might benefit from our support. She recommended the bow hunt and the AMVETS lunch/Bingo programs. Both were pleasantly surprised to hear from us and very gracious in accepting our donations.”
For more information regarding the free bow hunt, contact director and founder William Frost at 740-412-2869. This year’s event is scheduled for Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 (half-days) at the Gabriel farm and Nov. 14 (full day) at Deer Creek. All disabled veterans are welcome and greatly encouraged to participate and volunteers are always needed.
For more AMVETS lunch/Bingo details, contact Commander Pat Cherry at 740-412-5151.
This article originally appeared on The Pickaway News Journal
