thedrifter
01-08-07, 06:34 AM
Woman sends boxes of cheer to military
Monday, January 08, 2007
By Virginia Linn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
To say that Summer Tissue was angry when her younger brother signed up with the Marines three years ago might be a bit of an understatement.
In fact, she felt the recruiters painted a too-rosy picture of the military experience and wanted to set up a table in front of the recruiting office "to show them the real video," she recalled.
But one of the recruiters urged her to channel her anger into something positive, not negative.
And that she did.
The 24-year-old Bethel Park woman founded Military Connections, a nonprofit organization that sends needed supplies to troops as they're getting ready to deploy, as well as when they're stationed overseas.
She has shipped more than 600 boxes to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Kuwait and other countries. They include everything from phone cards to white socks to razors to toothbrushes to sunblock to disposable cameras to sneakers to Christmas stockings and hometown newspaper sports reports.
For creating Military Connections, Ms. Tissue has won a 2006 Jefferson Award for Public Service. She's one of seven winners who will be honored Jan. 25 at an awards dinner at the Carnegie Music Hall. At the ceremony William J. Green & Associates will provide $1,000 to her charity.
The Jefferson Award program honors outstanding volunteers and is administered by the American Institute for Public Service and, locally, by the Post-Gazette and The Pittsburgh Foundation.
Ms. Tissue and what she's done with Military Connections are "pretty special," said her brother, Marine Cpl. Edward Tissue, 22, who was redeployed to Iraq just before Christmas.
"The first time you're over there, you get pretty down and you don't have a lot of contact with the real world," he said. "It's just a tremendous morale booster to know there's people in America who care about you."
He enlisted in July 2003 after graduating from Plum Senior High School. Ms. Tissue got to know some of his platoon buddies at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that "Eddie" would invite to the family's Plum home for the holidays.
They told her they had to spend their own money on much of their equipment and supplies -- such as the $100 liners for their helmets to help protect against head injury if they're slammed to the ground by the force of explosions. Or even toothbrushes.
"I thought it was ridiculous that they had to pay for toothbrushes when they were defending our country," she said. "That fueled my fire."
As a political science major at Edinboro University, she started shipping supplies that they needed when they were deployed overseas. And she continued shipping supplies once they were there to keep them going.
It began with her brother and seven of his friends. Then she learned of other troops who needed help, particularly those who were not getting any mail from home. And then even more. There are now 224 troops on her list in all branches of the military.
Ms. Tissue's mother, Pauline, said volunteerism is nothing new for her oldest daughter.
"She's amazing," said Mrs. Tissue, 50, who nominated Summer for the volunteer award. "I think she was born a little adult. She has always been so willing to care for everyone else."
Military Connections grew slowly. Family members and friends chipped in to shop for supplies and help ship them. They stood outside election polls to hand out fliers about the program. An uncle who lives in Ohio spreads the word in that state. They also asked local businesses to display donation cans that included pictures of some of the soldiers on them.
Once she returned home from college, Ms. Tissue set up operations for Military Connections in her brother's empty bedroom. It became incorporated as a nonprofit in the state in May 2005. Between May and December 2005, the organization received $1,030 in cash and $1,582 in supplies, and donations continue to increase.
Early in 2006, Ms. Tissue moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Bethel Park to help care for her ailing grandmother. She sleeps each night on the living room fold-out couch; the bedroom is used as headquarters for Military Connections.
Under a giant poster of Rosie the Riveter in the bedroom, there are shelves stacked with supplies as well as scores of folded-up boxes lined up against the wall.
Ms. Tissue generally has 30 to 60 boxes ready to ship at a time. Preparing 60 boxes takes six days from start to finish, with buying the supplies, building and packing the boxes, putting on labels and filling out Customs forms (her nemesis, she says). Each box costs $8.10 to ship.
Shipping them is no small matter, either. There are several trips up and down 13 steps from her second floor apartment to her car, and then several more trips back and forth into the Bethel Park post office.
Once there it takes 1 1/2 hours to process 30 boxes. She tries to pick times during the day when the post office isn't busy because she knows she'll be holding up the line. "Some people waiting get really mad," she said.
Earlier in the fall she took a job with an insurance agency, and she tries to squeeze in her work with Military Connections -- up to 75 hours a week at the holidays -- around her job duties.
Occasionally she'll get some unusual requests. Soldiers on an Army base once asked for bottles of bubbles and other silly games and toys. "They were having morale problems; they wanted something fun to do."
Mrs. Tissue said when her daughter found out how desperate one soldier was to have a pair of sneakers (they have only their combat boots to wear overseas), she immediately went to Kohl's and found a pair in his size and mailed it out that day.
"It is Summer's ideals that benefit her community," Mrs. Tissue wrote in her nomination letter, "but it is her heart that benefits soldiers all around the world awaiting just one letter."
Ms. Tissue hopes Military Connections will continue to grow and reach more troops. Last month for the first time, she teamed with Toys for Tots, a Marine Corps charity, in a joint fund-raiser. And in mid-December boxes of blank Christmas cards arrived that were donated from someone in Arkansas who had heard about the program. (She sends these to troops -- as well as blank birthday, Valentine, Mother's and Father's Day cards -- so they can send them home to their families.)
She soon plans to seek federal nonprofit status, a requirement when annual donations exceed $5,000. Her brother also hopes to have a role in the organization when her returns from Iraq in July.
While she's thrilled with the Jefferson Award, it's the acknowledgment she gets from the troops that really makes an impact.
"Many don't feel appreciated, and they feel forgotten," she said. "It's so awesome when I open up my e-mail and there's a thank-you note from one of them."
(Virginia Linn can be reached at vlinn@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1662. )
Ellie
Monday, January 08, 2007
By Virginia Linn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
To say that Summer Tissue was angry when her younger brother signed up with the Marines three years ago might be a bit of an understatement.
In fact, she felt the recruiters painted a too-rosy picture of the military experience and wanted to set up a table in front of the recruiting office "to show them the real video," she recalled.
But one of the recruiters urged her to channel her anger into something positive, not negative.
And that she did.
The 24-year-old Bethel Park woman founded Military Connections, a nonprofit organization that sends needed supplies to troops as they're getting ready to deploy, as well as when they're stationed overseas.
She has shipped more than 600 boxes to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Kuwait and other countries. They include everything from phone cards to white socks to razors to toothbrushes to sunblock to disposable cameras to sneakers to Christmas stockings and hometown newspaper sports reports.
For creating Military Connections, Ms. Tissue has won a 2006 Jefferson Award for Public Service. She's one of seven winners who will be honored Jan. 25 at an awards dinner at the Carnegie Music Hall. At the ceremony William J. Green & Associates will provide $1,000 to her charity.
The Jefferson Award program honors outstanding volunteers and is administered by the American Institute for Public Service and, locally, by the Post-Gazette and The Pittsburgh Foundation.
Ms. Tissue and what she's done with Military Connections are "pretty special," said her brother, Marine Cpl. Edward Tissue, 22, who was redeployed to Iraq just before Christmas.
"The first time you're over there, you get pretty down and you don't have a lot of contact with the real world," he said. "It's just a tremendous morale booster to know there's people in America who care about you."
He enlisted in July 2003 after graduating from Plum Senior High School. Ms. Tissue got to know some of his platoon buddies at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that "Eddie" would invite to the family's Plum home for the holidays.
They told her they had to spend their own money on much of their equipment and supplies -- such as the $100 liners for their helmets to help protect against head injury if they're slammed to the ground by the force of explosions. Or even toothbrushes.
"I thought it was ridiculous that they had to pay for toothbrushes when they were defending our country," she said. "That fueled my fire."
As a political science major at Edinboro University, she started shipping supplies that they needed when they were deployed overseas. And she continued shipping supplies once they were there to keep them going.
It began with her brother and seven of his friends. Then she learned of other troops who needed help, particularly those who were not getting any mail from home. And then even more. There are now 224 troops on her list in all branches of the military.
Ms. Tissue's mother, Pauline, said volunteerism is nothing new for her oldest daughter.
"She's amazing," said Mrs. Tissue, 50, who nominated Summer for the volunteer award. "I think she was born a little adult. She has always been so willing to care for everyone else."
Military Connections grew slowly. Family members and friends chipped in to shop for supplies and help ship them. They stood outside election polls to hand out fliers about the program. An uncle who lives in Ohio spreads the word in that state. They also asked local businesses to display donation cans that included pictures of some of the soldiers on them.
Once she returned home from college, Ms. Tissue set up operations for Military Connections in her brother's empty bedroom. It became incorporated as a nonprofit in the state in May 2005. Between May and December 2005, the organization received $1,030 in cash and $1,582 in supplies, and donations continue to increase.
Early in 2006, Ms. Tissue moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Bethel Park to help care for her ailing grandmother. She sleeps each night on the living room fold-out couch; the bedroom is used as headquarters for Military Connections.
Under a giant poster of Rosie the Riveter in the bedroom, there are shelves stacked with supplies as well as scores of folded-up boxes lined up against the wall.
Ms. Tissue generally has 30 to 60 boxes ready to ship at a time. Preparing 60 boxes takes six days from start to finish, with buying the supplies, building and packing the boxes, putting on labels and filling out Customs forms (her nemesis, she says). Each box costs $8.10 to ship.
Shipping them is no small matter, either. There are several trips up and down 13 steps from her second floor apartment to her car, and then several more trips back and forth into the Bethel Park post office.
Once there it takes 1 1/2 hours to process 30 boxes. She tries to pick times during the day when the post office isn't busy because she knows she'll be holding up the line. "Some people waiting get really mad," she said.
Earlier in the fall she took a job with an insurance agency, and she tries to squeeze in her work with Military Connections -- up to 75 hours a week at the holidays -- around her job duties.
Occasionally she'll get some unusual requests. Soldiers on an Army base once asked for bottles of bubbles and other silly games and toys. "They were having morale problems; they wanted something fun to do."
Mrs. Tissue said when her daughter found out how desperate one soldier was to have a pair of sneakers (they have only their combat boots to wear overseas), she immediately went to Kohl's and found a pair in his size and mailed it out that day.
"It is Summer's ideals that benefit her community," Mrs. Tissue wrote in her nomination letter, "but it is her heart that benefits soldiers all around the world awaiting just one letter."
Ms. Tissue hopes Military Connections will continue to grow and reach more troops. Last month for the first time, she teamed with Toys for Tots, a Marine Corps charity, in a joint fund-raiser. And in mid-December boxes of blank Christmas cards arrived that were donated from someone in Arkansas who had heard about the program. (She sends these to troops -- as well as blank birthday, Valentine, Mother's and Father's Day cards -- so they can send them home to their families.)
She soon plans to seek federal nonprofit status, a requirement when annual donations exceed $5,000. Her brother also hopes to have a role in the organization when her returns from Iraq in July.
While she's thrilled with the Jefferson Award, it's the acknowledgment she gets from the troops that really makes an impact.
"Many don't feel appreciated, and they feel forgotten," she said. "It's so awesome when I open up my e-mail and there's a thank-you note from one of them."
(Virginia Linn can be reached at vlinn@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1662. )
Ellie