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Sisters Send 30,000 Letters To Children Of Deployed
(October 5, 2010) |
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Lanigan and her sister
Clare launched the “Thousand Thanks” program
through which they send notes to kids of all
ages across the country to thank them for the
sacrifices they make while their parent is
deployed.
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WASHINGTON (ANS - Sept. 30, 2010) -- Kat Lanigan,
the daughter of an Army Reserve Soldier, saw the
outpouring of appreciation for America's
military members serving in Afghanistan and Iraq
and even took part in a class project writing
letters of thanks to deployed servicemembers.
Then she realized somebody else also deserved
such thank-you notes: the children of deployed
parents.
"We thought it would be nice to re-purpose that
a little bit and do it for the kids, as well,"
said Kat.
Kat, now a 19-year-old heading into her
sophomore year at Yale, was joined in the
project by her sister, Clare, now 18. Four years
ago, the siblings launched a "Thousand Thanks,"
sending notes to kids of all ages across the
country to thank them for the sacrifices they
make while their parent is deployed.
So far, the Lanigans have sent more than 30,000
such letters. "We'd never imagined it getting
quite that big, but it's been really great," Kat
said.
The sisters have received some big-time help,
too. Warner Brothers Loony Tunes and Hanna-Barbera
have signed on as partners, allowing the
Lanigans to sign the letters with the signatures
of various cartoon characters, like Tweety or
Scooby Doo. Basketball superstar Shaquille
O'Neal, an Army brat himself, also lent his
signature to the cause. |
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Parents can log on to the website,
www.saluteourservices.org, and fill out a form with all the
pertinent details necessary for the letter, such as name and
age of the child and the relationship to the deployed adult
(mother, father, stepparent, grandparent, uncle, aunt,
brother or sister), how the child refers to that adult
(Daddy, Nana), and the preferred signatory. The form also
allows space for any specific information the child might
want to read.
The Lanigan sisters start with a form letter and personalize
it for each child. Though they have volunteers helping with
envelope stuffing and labeling, Kat and Clare author every
letter.
They do have a personal stake. Their father, Maj. Kevin
Lanigan, an Army Reserve judge advocate assigned to the
450th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) in Riverdale Park,
Md., deployed to Bosnia when Kat was 10 and Clare was 9, and
he has since deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We've never lived on a base," said Kat, whose home is in
Herndon, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.
"The isolation from other people going through that made
some things harder on us," she said. "It made us less
prepared for some things. None of our friends had family in
the military and didn't know what we were going through."
Kat wants to alleviate that sense of isolation for other
children of deployed servicemembers.
"There's not a lot really you can do when the parent is
deployed; you can't replace the parent," she said. "One of
the big things you can do is recognize what the children are
going through and let them know they are not alone and
everyone appreciates the sacrifice they're making." Thousand
Thanks letters, she said, "make them feel that they are not
necessarily alone when going through a deployment."
Based on what the sisters have heard from recipients and
their parents, the letters appear to do just that, Kat said.
One recipient, for example, took to sleeping with the letter
under his pillow. "It's always very exciting when we get one
of those [replies]," she said. "Makes us feel really good
and like we're helping a little bit."
While Kat was at Yale, Clare did most of the letter writing
this year, but "I'm really hoping that she'll let me do more
this summer," Kat said. Next year, Clare heads off to
college at the University of San Diego on the opposite coast
from Kat. Still, the sisters intend to keep sending out
their Thousand Thanks.
"Definitely, we want to keep it going," Kat said. "As long
as there are kids with deployed family members, we want to
help them as much as we can, and we think we've found a way
to do that."
For more information on Thousand Thanks and to fill out a
form to have a letter sent to the child of a deployed
servicemember, go to Salute Our Services. |
Article and photo by Eric Minton
Copyright 2010 |
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Reprinted from
Army News Service
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