Way more treats than tricks as Scouts collect candy for our troops

Maree Malone will tell you she's a woman who's not afraid to ask for things.

So on Sunday, she walked into the Wood Dale Target store, asked for the manager and then asked if the store would be willing to donate leftover Halloween candy to help some local Brownies and Cadets with their goal of collecting 500 pounds of goodies to send to our troops.

"I was expecting maybe a few bags," she says.

Instead, she walked out with hundreds of bags of sweets - enough to fill her trunk and a friend's SUV. It was way more than she expected.

"I was actually crying in the store," she says.

Take what you need

The story begins Sunday morning at the Lutheran Church of Saint Luke in Itasca, where Malone finds herself checking out an informational pamphlet called "Connections" and sees an item about third-grade Brownies asking for candy donations. Kind of cute, you know, with chocolate going to our men and women in colder climes and gummy bears and stuff like that going to troops in warmer areas where chocolate might melt in your mouth and in your hand.

After church, Malone stops by the Wood Dale Jewel and asks the manager about possible donations and is told they'll help out.

So she figures, what the heck, and stops at a Target where she meets the manager, Maria Lufrano, who's been working there for 12 years.

Malone tells Lufrano what she's looking for and Lufrano tells Malone she can take whatever candy she wants.

"I was very moved by her request," Lufrano says. "I was just so thrilled and excited to do that for our troops."

Malone's eyes are filled with tears as she fills several shopping carts and brings them to the checkout lane where a cashier rings them up. Even at 70 percent off as a post-holiday sale, the bill would have come to $600.

Malone and Lufrano, it turns out, are kindred spirits.

"Who deserves more than senior citizens and our military," says Malone, who spent 36 years as a physical education teacher in Berwyn before retiring in 2011. "At least that's how I feel."

"Our troops need all the help we can give them," Lufrano says. "We want them to know we care about them, we're out here thinking about them."

Brownies at work

On Monday, Malone drops off the candy at the Lutheran School of St. Luke and three Brownies - Madalyn Painter, Emma Larson and Maura Pruyn - along with some adults, help unload the haul.

Principal Patti Fagalde is among them. She says she learned about the candy drive involving Brownie Troop 55503 and Cadet Troop 55191 a couple weeks ago and thought "it would be an awesome thing."

Last year the troops did a drive that fell just short of 500 pounds and they wanted to top that number this year, says Deb Painter, a mom who helps with the Brownie troop.

All 20 girls in the troop started at St. Luke, she says, but most have gone on to public schools. The three who remain at St. Luke spoke to their principal and their classmates to build support for the donation to Elk Grove Village-based Packages 4 Patriots. Founded in June 2010, the group has shipped roughly 7,000 care packages totaling more than 97,000 pounds to our armed forces.

Fagalde says the response has been overwhelming.

"We've filled every recyclable bin in St. Luke with candy," she says - even before Malone's contribution.

Fagalde, who spent 12 years as a teacher at St. Luke before taking over as principal of the school of 123 kids from 2-year-olds through eighth-graders, says she's happy but not surprised by the response.

"I'm amazingly proud of the kids at St. Luke," she says. "But I am not surprised, because if you challenge St. Luke, they always rise to the challenge."

Topping their goal

The folks at St. Luke weighed their candy haul Monday afternoon and it came to 624 pounds at their school alone.

They'll continue collecting donations through Nov. 15 at the school, 410 S. Rush St.

It says a lot about the kids who worked so hard. It says a lot about the adults who supported them - both inside and outside the Scouting community.

Deb Painter says the project's success tells you what you need to know about "the Girl Scout's mission and what St. Luke is all about."

Here's something else: the Brownies and Cadets do a service project each month. On Monday, after collecting all that candy, the girls already were preparing to set up beds for those staying at an area homeless shelter. Oh, and they're bringing dessert, too.