The first day that signs went up in the Franklin Building for Operation ShoeBox -- a project to collect toiletries and other items to send to U.S. troops overseas -- a woman came in near tears to drop off her donation.
"I think she said her nephew was there," project coordinator Yvonne Giorgio said.
"She said, 'This is the least I can do.' She's practically in tears dropping off this package for someone she doesn't even know," she added.
Giorgio, a staffer at Student Financial Services, started the collection as part of a national campaign to send letters and packages to individual soldiers. But, she said, it has become a way for members of the University community -- those who support the war and those who don't -- to combat helplessness and to express their support for soldiers abroad.
Operation ShoeBox is the most recent in a line of projects initiated by Giorgio to connect the University community to those in need.
It started with Operation Santa Claus, now a yearly event, when Giorgio coordinates a Christmas party for residents of orphanages and nursing homes, complete with presents and a magician. Then, there was a collection organized for soldiers in the first Gulf War and one for victims of floods in the Midwest.
Operation Brotherly Love soon followed, coordinated to meet the needs of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Giorgio, with the help of several other Penn staff members, put up balloons and signs on Locust Walk and secured a tractor trailer to transport the donated items.
"When I saw the tractor trailer, I thought, there's no way I'm going to fill even a corner of that truck," Giorgio said. "We almost filled it up."
And now, there's Operation ShoeBox. Giorgio keeps her office door open for people to drop off their donations and even has gotten Modern Eye on Walnut Street to donate a case of contact lens solution.
Once Giorgio collects enough items, she ships them to the project's headquarters in Florida.
The project was launched in January by two women, Mary Harper and Kandi Antich, to keep themselves busy with their children in the military abroad. With five children stationed in Iraq, Harper's story has attracted the attention of local and national media.
The cause has been taken up by scout troops and elementary schools as far away as Canada and Alaska, Antich said. The duo has been compiling and sending about 200 shoeboxes each week to individual soldiers. Most recently, soldiers aboard the USS Kittyhawk have asked to be adopted by Operation ShoeBox.
Items requested by soldiers stationed in the desert range from baby wipes to beef jerky. The military has also provided a list of restrictions to what may and may not be sent.
For one, individuals must send packages to specific soldiers.
"I guess they were receiving way too many packages for them to handle that said, 'To Any Service Person, Kuwait,'" Giorgio said. "They were too uncomfortable not knowing what was in these packages."
Troops are also prohibited from receiving homemade food, pornography and items like pork products that might be offensive to local populations.
Antich also said that soldiers are not allowed to receive newspapers or magazines that might report on events outside their own base.
"My own daughter is in Korea," she said. "They're very limited about what kind of information they're allowed to hear about the war."
Those involved in Operation ShoeBox maintain that their participation does not mean that they support the current war in Iraq. Anne Marie Pitts, a staff member in the English Department who has started her own collection in Bennett Hall, commented that every war is controversial, but there is a difference between supporting a war and supporting U.S. troops.
"I remember the Vietnam era, and I realize that people can't separate war from soldiers," Pitts said. "When their feelings are mixed, it's hard for them to realize that there are people over there who don't have any say either."
Giorgio -- who, when asked about the war, responds, "I'm not for it or against it" -- said she believes that donating to Operation ShoeBox "in no way means that people have to be for the war just to support the troops that are over there fighting for us."
Giorgio said she plans to continue collecting items until the war ends and hopes to involve even more of the University community than she has in previous projects by encouraging students to make donations.
"While you're at the supermarket picking up your own groceries, buy some toothpaste and a toothbrush or buy some Kotex," she said. "You don't have to make a special trip. Most people could probably just go to their own cabinet."
