A Good Problem For Deployed Marines

At E.C. Glass High School, the student council association started a drive for items to send to a platoon of Marines in Afghanistan. Student council coordinator and Spanish teacher Laurie Croft had thought the student government group might be able to collect enough items to fill three boxes. Instead the group was flooded with about 1,000 items, enough to fill 18 large flat-rate boxes. Now the organizers need to come up with roughly $360 in postage for shipping. "I can't say why they went above and beyond, but they really, really did," Croft said, explaining that the drive had to compete with a half-dozen other holiday fund drives and charity events going on at Glass, including the school's angel tree. She told the story of a boy in one of her classes, who had donated a $25 gift card he had received for his birthday to the Marines gift effort. The plan is to ship the packages on Thursday, so the gifts can make it to Afghanistan in time for Christmas, but that shipping date may be set back if the money cannot be raised in time. "If it arrives after Christmas, it's a great New Years present," said French teacher Emily Lukanich.Lukanich's brother is a Marine lieutenant, recently deployed with his company to Afghanistan. Lukanich explained that during a past deployment her brother noticed that while some of his soldiers got lots of packages from their families, other soldiers did not. He asked Lukanich and other members of his family if they would pitch in this time around and each adopt one of his company's platoons. Lukanich agreed to take on the 30-person heavy artillery weapons platoon. She brought up the idea with Croft, who in turn asked the members of the student council if they would sponsor the project. Lukanich said she comes from a military family and that her sister has also served in Iraq. She said that the items being sent over -- everything from baby wipes and hand sanitizer to hard candy and DVDs -- will be gratefully received in Afghanistan. "Just getting anything from the United States is a real morale booster," Lukanich said. "It's just knowing someone's looking out for them."