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thedrifter
02-28-08, 07:54 PM
Navy-Marine Corps Society offices begin annual worldwide fund drives
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, February 28, 2008


Navy-Marine Corps Society offices kicked off their annual fund drives Wednesday, and will be hitting up community members over the next month for donations.

The worldwide drive runs through March and aims to help the charitable organization be the Navy and Marine Corps’ principle source of financial assistance to troops, officials said.

Last year, the organization handed out $143.6 million in 45,690 cases in which sailors, Marines, retirees of those services or their eligible families needed help. There are 250 offices worldwide and the organization collected $17 million last year.

“This is a foundation where we take care of our own,” Rear Adm. Michael Groothousen, commander of Navy Region Europe, told assembled volunteers from Naples, Italy, rallying them for the work ahead.

Many of those who took advantage last year of the society’s varying programs were combat casualties, and the society handed out $1.5 million to 1,035 clients in that category, most in the form of grants that do not need to be repaid, said Chief Petty Officer Devon Knight, the Naples fund drive coordinator.

In Naples, for example, last year the local society office provided $159,000 in loans or grants to sailors and Marines and families, and $106,000 in tuition assistance programs. Volunteers last year collected $136,387 in donations, earned through paycheck allotments, cash or check donations, or fund raising events.

Ellie