KAPA‘A — There may have been only five people in the room at the Kapa‘a High School Student Activities Center Tuesday afternoon, but that number is just the tip of the ice-berg in a collection effort to send packages to
KAPA‘A — There may have been only five people in the room at the Kapa‘a High School Student Activities Center Tuesday afternoon, but that number is just the tip of the ice-berg in a collection effort to send packages to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kapa‘a High School junior Britney Sutton was spearheading the effort to finalize and package the materials that have been accumulating since they launched their campaign on April 1.
With the final collection being done on Friday, April 29, Sutton said that she just happened to be the person selected by the Stand Up For America (SUFA) program to spearhead the Kaua‘i effort.
Sutton said that it took a lot of people and representatives of organizations to get to where they were Tuesday afternoon, and there were bumps in the road along the way.
A relative in Iraq, as well as her dad, a retired Marine, motivated Sutton to accept the responsibility of trying to collate materials for the overseas soldiers, and she said, “My dad was really proud when I accepted the position.” Additionally, Sutton can relate to what is taking place because of her participation in the Kapa‘a High School JROTC program.
“When my dad was in Vietnam, he said they really appreciated these packages from home,” she explained.
But, following the collection announcement on April 1, returns dwindled.
Enter Aunty Joan Kealalio and the Interact Club of Kapa‘a High School.
“The Interact Club was great,” Sutton said. “They brought in a lot of stuff. And, when Aunty Joan found out that there weren’t that many letters (to soldiers), she spearheaded an effort at the Interact Club to write letters.”
The letter-writing campaign also got help from Sutton’s mom, Sandra Diego, who, Sutton said, “dug out all the cards she could find in the house, and wrote cards and letters.”
Sutton said she has personally written the soldiers as well, inviting them to write back to her, and if they need more things, she would organize another collection effort.
But that effort still needed support, and Sutton said she took the cause to the Cavalry Chapel church, where members came through with a large contribution within just one week.
During the finalization process on Tuesday, Sutton got help from Tara Campbell and Connie Campbell, a mother-daughter team, and fellow juniors Ashley Miguel and Jean Viernes, as they separated items, and began packing individual envelopes that would contain a personal-hygiene item, a food item, and letters.
Items that were too big to fit into the envelopes were separated and packed into separate cartons to be forwarded along with the envelopes.
Sutton explained that, following the Tuesday-afternoon packaging, everything would be forwarded to SUFA headquarters on O‘ahu, where they would incorporate the Kaua‘i collection with efforts from 12 other high schools from around the state.
Sutton said she believes Kapa‘a is the only school from the outer islands in the Adopt A Hero program spearheaded by SUFA, the other 12 schools all being on O‘ahu.
SUFA Founder and President Mike Gabbard said, “It’s awesome to see this outpouring of aloha from our community for our troops. I know that they will appreciate all these heartfelt letters and local snacks that will go a long way in boosting the morale of these heroes that are far from home and making such a sacrifice for our country.
“We are also sending out prayers that they’ll all make it home safely,” said Gabbard.
The Adopt A Hero project was launched in 2003 when SUFA leaders contacted all the public and private school teachers in Hawai‘i, asking them to participate in this program.
For more information on SUFA, and the Adopt A Hero program, please visit the Web site, www.standupforamerica.net.
- Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@pulitzer.net.
