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thedrifter
01-05-07, 07:33 AM
When you care enough to send the very best
BY DENNIS MCCARTHY, Columnist
Article Last Updated: 01/04/2007 09:32:19 PM PST

Odds and ends from around the Valley:

The phone in Carolyn Blashek's Encino home rang early last Friday - a call the founder of Operation Gratitude had been anticipating.

"I just want to thank you and all your volunteers for everything you're doing for us," Lance Cpl. Jordan Richards said from his base at Camp Fallujah, Iraq.

The 19-year-old Marine had just returned from patrol and learned that his was the 200,000th care package sent by Operation Gratitude, the volunteer organization Blashek started three years ago to support U.S. troops in Iraq.

In Richards' box was a baseball cap autographed by all the Angels players, a DVD player, phone cards, and plenty of holiday cards and letters of support, along with a scale-model of a Dodge Caliber.

A real Caliber will be given to Richards when he returns in May to his duty station in Twentynine Palms.

"He was so excited," Blashek said Thursday. "He had already called his fiancee and told her to go on the Internet to see what a Dodge Caliber looked like.

"She said it looked cool. He told her that was good because they owned one now."

The car was a gift from Checkers-Rallys, a national restaurant chain and a corporate sponsor of Operation Gratitude.

"We could not have reached this 200,000 milestone without our great sponsors, and the thousands of individual volunteers and donors who have helped us over the last three years," Blashek said.

For more information on Operation Gratitude, see www.opgratitude.com.

Another big pat on the back goes to Linda Bitto and the students and teachers at Burbank High School who helped brighten the holidays for U.S. troops in Iraq.

Bitto, who works in the school's attendance office, invited teachers and students to write troops a holiday letter. She hoped to include the messages in packages of small gifts and homemade cookies she planned to send overseas.

Well, 92 packages and 22 dozen cookies later, Bitto found herself wondering how she was going to cover the $700 cost of shipping the goodies overseas.

"I sent out a few request letters for donations to help with the cost of shipping, and within five days the students shared their change, and many teachers wrote checks sponsoring one or more boxes to cover the entire shipment," Bitto said.

And now, the bulletin board at Burbank High is covered with e-mails and letters of thanks from soldiers and Marines.

"It is very hard for our soldiers over here, particularly the younger men and women, many of them right out of high school, to understand why they are here doing a tough, confusing mission," Maj. Dan Wilson wrote his supporters.

"The one thing that keeps their morale up is knowing the people back home are proud of them and support them."

Mark Levin, producer of this year's Los Angeles County Holiday Celebration at the Music Center, sent along an e-mail he wanted me to share.

"I just wanted to let you know that we concluded the show with the same holiday spirit that we entered it with," he wrote.

"Our caterer, Shlomo Laniado of Orange Delite and Grill in Sherman Oaks, had a few homeless people come to him during the catering, asking for food.

"He fed 20 people that live in the area of the Hall of Administration, including one homeless vet who said he had once been a cook in the Marine Corps.

"Shlomo, a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces, put all the homeless people he fed to work, preparing 70 more dinners from all the leftover food.

"Then Shlomo and the homeless Marine took the food down to 6th and San Pedro and fed another 70 people that evening," Levin said.

Nice touch, Shlomo.

And finally, the City of Hope will be registering bone marrow donors on Sunday, searching for a match for 12-year-old Steve Kechichian of Glendale.

Steve was diagnosed with leukemia at 7 and underwent extensive chemotherapy. Unfortunately, the cancer is back, and his only chance is a marrow transplant.

The test is painless and takes only a few minutes. It will be held noon to 4 p.m. at St. Peter Youth Ministries Center, 632 W. Stockton Ave., Glendale.

If you can't make it Sunday but want to join the National Marrow Donor program, see www.marrow.org.

Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

dennis.mccarthy@dailynews.com

(81 713-3749

Ellie