Troops wanted: Cookie aficionados preferred

The counter on the Yellow Ribbon Support Group reads 13,177.

That's the number of care packages the Palatine organization has sent to active military forces deployed overseas.

Now the group has ample supplies - including 7,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies - but a dwindling list of servicemen and women to surprise with those care packages.

Co-founders Pat and Mac McCoy are asking the public to submit the names of loved ones currently deployed on foreign shores.

"We need to let the troops know they're supported," Pat McCoy said.

She and her husband only set out to provide snacks and the occasional box of toiletries for their son, retired Green Beret and Staff Sgt. Rick McCoy, and his 12-man Army Special Forces team in Iraq.

In 2003, they approached former Marine and Palatine police Chief John Koziol, who set them up in a room that for years housed the task force investigating the Brown's Chicken murders.

The McCoys' operation grew exponentially.

"All of Palatine jumped on our bandwagon," McCoy said. "We've got our assembly line down to a science."

The police department also sends juveniles sentenced to community service through its peer jury program to help packaging. Pat McCoy said those kids and other volunteers are all required to read through four binders full of letters from appreciate troops.

"We make everybody read them so they know why what we're doing is so important," she said.

The Yellow Ribbon Support Group has become just that for its members. Many of the 30 regular volunteers have children in the military. They meet for dinner, provide updates and hold services.

In turn, the community has been quick to support the group. At a recent campaign at Holy Family Parish in Inverness, all 400 care packages were distributed to individuals who take the boxes to the post office and pay the $10.35 postage.

The group will have another 150 boxes ready to go at the Palatine War Memorial following the Memorial Day parade Monday, which will end around 11 a.m. at the Veterans Memorial in Community Park at Palatine Road and Northwest Highway.

Anyone interested in making a donation or getting a care package to their loved ones can go to yellowribbonsg.org. The soldiers' names and APO/FPO addresses are needed, along with the month and year they're expected to return to the U.S.