Magazines brighten soldiers' lives

In her small home in Lakeside, Donna Chase picks her way over multiple stacks of magazines sorted by titles such as Field and Stream, North American Hunter and Sports Illustrated.

"It gets to where you can't get through the room," she said.

It's packing day for her international shipments of donated reading material to deployed soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors stationed from Iraq to Afghanistan and beyond.

"We serve several aid stations where the wounded are taken," Chase said.

From a small effort serving a few units of one brigade, Chase's nonprofit Magazines for Troops organization has mushroomed into a distribution to more than 70 units that receive shipments monthly.

Chase recalls a favorite story from a military chaplain who requested magazines through her website, www.magazinesfortroops.com.

"When he got his first box, he had planned to hand out magazines and get pictures. He said they attacked like a bunch of piranhas," she said with a laugh.

She also appreciated the words of a departing troop passed on by a newly arrived soldier asking for magazines.

"He said ‘You've got to check out their website - they're a godsend,'" Chase recalled.

The description fits the evolution of the organization run by Chase with help from Esther Gunlock, who maintains 11 collection sites in Polson and Ronan and ships to two units of her own.

Chase, who has no personal military connection, got involved when Kim Jones of Bigfork presented her first Adopt-A-Soldier project at their church. Her initial program asked people to adopt members of her son's unit in Iraq who received little or nothing from home.

Jones offered people a chance to draw the name of a soldier to send care packages or just letters of support.

"I thought that was the coolest thing ever," Chase said.

She and her husband Doug adopted a soldier and enjoyed assembling and sending regular packages.

Chase learned in early 2008 that the unit's brigade was short of reading materials. To help out, she put out collection boxes at grocery stores and other gathering spots to see if anyone would donate their recent magazines for the troops.

"I figured people would just clear off the coffee table," she said. "It just got bigger and bigger and bigger."

When the men and women of the units served returned from deployment, Chase felt a void in her life. She contacted a chaplain she had worked with previously to try to find more troops to serve.

His advice was to put up a website. She said she didn't want the expense and hassle but finally got her "web guy" to build a simple site that brought results.

"They found us and requests started trickling in - then they came faster and faster," she said.

At last count, she was sending to 73 deployed units in all branches of the Armed Services in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. Chase's mailing list includes four aircraft carriers and one guided missile cruiser.

"I just got another ship - the USS Enterprise," she said. "The mother of one of the sailors, Ben Pierson, lives here."

Chase particularly enjoys a chance to welcome home or hear from local troops who received magazines. The many testimonials she receives from grateful troops revive her energy for the time-consuming mission.

"It's seven days a week," she said. "We're looking for volunteers to gather magazines."

The Bigfork collection sites are Harvest Foods and the UPS Store. Chase also has boxes at Rosauers in Kalispell; Blacktail Grocery, the library and Post Office in Lakeside and all Glacier Bank locations.

"We'd love to have someone in Whitefish and Columbia Falls," Chase said.

She needs volunteers who, like Gunlock, regularly pick up magazines, cut off address labels for security and sort them. To save time, Chase sorts out low-demand and inappropriate material, then drops them off at the recycling center so mostly usable magazines remain in her vehicle.

At home, she stacks by titles, making it easy to assemble an assortment into each flat-rate shipping box.

"Every unit has a bunch of different personalities and different interests," Chase said.

The troops enjoy publications featuring cars, trucks, four-wheelers, guns, boats, skiing, hunting, fishing, men's fitness and health. She has an ample selection of women's magazines for the few requests she receives.

Between 30 to 40 selections go into each shipment.

"I pack when I have enough to fill 50 shipping boxes," she said.

At $10.95 each, the postage adds up quickly for 73 boxes. Chase depends on donations to pay for shipping as well as materials like the yards of two-inch packing tape she uses monthly.

People who would like to make tax-deductible donations may send a check to:

Magazines for Troop

P. O. Box 909

Lakeside, Montana 59922

Any deployed military who would like reading material may use her website to get the service started. Chase tries to ship a box the day after receiving a request.

It amazes and pleases her to think of all the service men and women who have benefited from this operation based in a small living room in Lakeside.

"I never set out to do it - it just kind of happened," Chase said. "It's a God thing. It blesses me as much as it does them."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com .