By Miles Jung-Kilbreath
Record-Courier staff writer
STREETSBORO -- With five months left before the city's adopted military unit returns home from Iraq, the city is in need of donations to keep mailing care packages to the troops through November.
"We are soon not going to have enough money to send their care packages to Iraq," Adopt-A-Unit City Coordinator Susan Kaiser said.
City Council officially adopted the U.S. Army's 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 101st Airborne division, based in Kentucky, through the Americans Supporting Americans program in August 2007.
The unit was deployed for the third time to Iraq in September 2007, according to Kaiser.
Kaiser said the unit, consisting of 125 soldiers, is a support and operations battery that facilitates ammunition distribution and provides the command and control elements for the battalion. She said the unit is not due to return until December.
Kaiser said the city normally sends items donated to the troops, mostly snacks which the troops prefer, and uses money donated to ship their packages to Iraq. She said the city currently has around $300 left in donations, which will barely cover the cost of sending one more set of care packages.
"The response from the soldiers has been very appreciative of anything that we can send them," Kaiser said. She said one of the soldiers' favorite items in the care packages are powdered drink mixes, like Kool-Aid, because they are only given water to drink. She said this makes the mixes both something easy to make and works as a reminder of home.
To help start raising funds, Kaiser said the program is running two raffles through July 7. The first raffle is a 50/50 raffle, with half the proceeds going to the program with the raffle winner receiving the rest, and the second is for a four-gigabyte iPod nano MP3 player.
Council President Pete Buczkowski said he hopes the winners of the raffle can attend council's July 7 service committee meeting, so council members can thank them for their help supporting the troops and the Adopt-A-Unit program.
The city is also planning to have a fund-raising booth set up at Woodside Lake Park's annual Flea Market on Sept. 8, according to Kaiser.
She said the fund-raiser will include raffles for tickets to the Browns/Steelers and Browns/Bengals football games in Cleveland and another 50/50 raffle. Tickets for either raffle are available at the Streetsboro Municipal Building and cost $1 each or $5 for six.
To make a financial donation, volunteer or to receive a list of items being collect for the care packages, contact Kaiser at 330-626-4835 or e-mail at sakaiser@jonesday.com.