Dog tags help pay for shipping to troops

As a co-chairman for the Fox Valley Troop Support group, Sarah Giachino of St. Charles knew she had come across a good idea to raise money that would help pay for the cost of shipping goods to servicemen overseas.

The result is that area residents are being asked to purchase a military dog tag for $8.95 in a symbolic gesture of support for the troops.

"I came up with this idea when I visited a Marine Corps base in North Carolina last fall," Giachino said. "One of the local military surplus shops was selling red metal bracelets that read, 'Operation Iraqi Freedom USMC, Until They All Come Home.' "

Giachino brought the idea before other Fox Valley Troop Support board members, and they embraced a similar concept using dog tags.

Before she left to attend a Marine Corps homecoming at Camp Lejuene in North Carolina earlier this month, Giachino purchased 100 of the dog tags to give to parents and family friends of returning Marines.

"Because our prayers were answered and they all came home, these dog tags personally represent a very meaningful homecoming," she said.

Giachino said St. Charles East student Sommer Ann McCullough wrote a recent article in her school paper about some graduates in the Marines and she is helping sell dog tags at the school.

Giachino will be busy contacting organizations that have supported the troops with past efforts to see if they can help with the dog tag sales. Information is available by contacting Giachino at (630) 587-3789.

Still an inside job: After mentioning earlier this month that Bill Kohanek had sold his building at 121 W. State St. in Geneva to the owners of a new marketing company, some readers might be wondering what this 80-year-old businessman will do now.

He'll continue to operate his interior-design business out of Batavia, which has generated many interesting projects for him over the years. One of those was the first restoration of the LaFox schoolhouse in the 1970s, some time before he purchased the stone building at 121 W. State St. in Geneva.

Beware of strange dogs: I know you should be careful around dogs you don't know, but this was ridiculous. While walking our miniature poodle along Fargo Boulevard in Geneva, a white Labrador suddenly approached us.

This large dog apparently had run across the street to see what we were up to. When the dog's apologetic owner came to retrieve her dog, she couldn't get the Lab to budge. In fact, the dog decided to park herself right in the middle of the street. So I grabbed it by the collar and started half-running across the street to get her home.

The dog must have spotted something that interested her once she got on her property, because she took off like a bolt, dragging me about 10 feet before I went sprawling on the ground like a kid playing tackle football with his buddies.

Lessons learned: Be leery of dogs that weigh more than you. And at age 54, bouncing around on the ground isn't as much fun as being 10 and trying to tackle another 10-year-old.

Because it is fun: You don't always need a fundraising cause to throw a party. United Methodist Church of Geneva is embracing that concept in hosting its first "Grace Place" evening of food and entertainment.

When you ask Beth Kucera, one of the event organizers, why the church is offering this fun night on April 5, her answer is simple: "Just because."

The dinner at 6 p.m. and concert at 7:30 p.m. featuring Scott Stevenson and Dennis O'Brien is simply to showcase the good cooks and good musicians at the church and to share that enjoyment with the Fox Valley community.

With all of the gloom in politics and society these days, this is a refreshing idea by Geneva Methodist, at the corner of Hamilton and Second streets. Ticket information is available at (630) 232-7120.

There's a mess: For the past four years in this column, I've mentioned heavily littered areas revealed by the season's first thaw in hopes they will get cleaned up. This season doesn't seem to want to thaw, but enough snow finally melted for us to set our eyes on the mess that usually lies below it.

Gasoline costs way too much for me to just drive around to look for littered landscapes, but I didn't have to go too far to say that there's a substantial mess along the fence lines on Fabyan Parkway near the Tri-Cities soccer fields used just east of Route 25.

There's plenty of other messes around for groups in the county's Adopt-a-Highway program and other organizations to volunteer to clean.

dheun@sbcglobal.net