The
FIVE ELVES OF INTEREST
CARE PACKAGE
LADY
STORY AND PHOTOS BY GREG GARDNER
You can just imagine the smile on a soldier’s face
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when a care package from Susie Q arrives at a desolate
forward operating base in Afghanistan.
For the past four years Susan Martin has used her
business — the St. Lucie Café — to collect goodies for the
almost 500 care packages she has sent to our troops. Located
across from Port St. Lucie City Hall, the breakfast-and-lunch
restaurant has a special wall at the entrance with photos and
letters from soldiers, including three flags that have flown in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It is so rewarding when a soldier returns home and stops
into the restaurant to say thank you,” says Martin, who also
answers to Susie Q. On a table next to the wall devoted to the
troops is a notebook with letters sent from Iraq and Afghanistan
and a collection box where patrons can drop off items
for the care packages. At the cashier’s station there is a large
bowl of candy. If you give a dollar to the troops, you get five
pieces of your choice.
To pay for the mailing of 10 boxes a month, Martin bakes
cookies and brownies and sells them at the restaurant. She
keeps tabs on the packages with a red, white and blue tallyboard
that on a recent afternoon indicated 493.
Hygiene items, candy, batteries, certain foods and socks are
some of the goodies that end up in the packages. But even
more refreshing for the soldiers are the letters written to them
by local children. For that, Martin reached out to schools and
the Boys and Girls Club.
Silly String from the packages has been used by American
forces in house to house searches to spot booby traps. The
soldiers spray the Silly String in doorways, where it adheres
to trip wires without setting off the traps. The Beanie Babies
are given out to make friends with Afghan and Iraqi children.
Since Martin began sending the packages, she has received
e-mail feedback as to exactly what items the soldiers really
need and enjoy. She calls the dining room of her Port St. Lucie
home, “Welcome to Wal-Mart.” The large table and the floor
around it are covered with items destined for American bases
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I’ll be working and people will walk up to me and put a
$20 bill in my hand,” Martin says. Her mother, Delores Gaba,
plays a large roll in the operation. “We have it down to a science,”
Delores says. “We pack the boxes, label them and tape
them up.”
The local Cleveland Browns fan club brought in more than
$400 worth of merchandise for the effort. “They were wheeling
in handcarts with beer boxes and I tried to tell them they
were at the wrong place,” Martin says. “Not only is that a
rewarding feeling, but our customers trust us. They believed
in us and gave us money.”
The care packages were initially sent to soldiers related to
local residents until an Army chaplain offered to provide addresses
to send the boxes.
“May the Lord continue to bless you and your families
with lives of joy, success, safety and happiness!” said Marine
Corps Brigadier General Timothy C. Hanifen in a letter on
display at the restaurant. “Thank you again for your continued
spiritual service. Again please continue to pray for us
and for the Iraqi nation and people.”
Army First Lieutenant Nicholas Keipper was a little more
direct in his letter from Camp Slayer, Baghdad, Iraq. “It is
nice to know there are still people who care and think about
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SEASON OF CELEBRATION