Soldiers get a Girl Scout care package

More than 10,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies, each with a personal message, were loaded onto a truck in Geneva Saturday to be shipped overseas.

Girl Scouts from the Fox Valley Council collected 837 cases of Samoas, Trefoils, Thin Mints, of course, and other brands of the iconic delights to be shipped to men and women serving in the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.

The cookies were stored in the garage of the Geneva home of Barbara Herrera-Snow. Her driveway was alive with activity Saturday as about 35 Girl Scouts and students from Geneva Middle School North loaded the cookies onto a moving van, which was donated for the project. The cookies were taken to Joliet for Operation Care Package.

"Operation Care Package sends care packages every week to troops serving overseas," said Debbie Smothers of Joliet, who volunteers for the program. "We started sending Girl Scout cookies and they told us they wanted to keep getting them.

"They are so grateful that complete strangers care about them," Smothers said. "After you read their e-mails and find out how much it means to them, you can't quit doing what you do."

Each box of cookies is wrapped with a page that is colored by a Girl Scout and has a hand-written note of thanks. Beneath the personally colored picture is a copy of a poem called "What a Soldier Means to Me." It was written by Barbara's daughter, Brooke Snow, 13, a Girl Scout and student at Geneva Middle School North.

"I wrote the poem for a class project and we wanted to use it," Brooke said.

Herrera-Snow has been a Girl Scout leader for seven years and has been chairing the project of collecting cookies for five years.

The Snows' e-mail address is included on the page with Brooke's poem. Barbara has received e-mails from soldiers with moving stories of how much the familiar Girl Scout cookies mean in their lonely and dangerous world.

Herrera-Snow collected 2,500 boxes last year and had the goal of collecting 3,000 this year, which she far exceeded at 10,500 boxes.

"I collected from the Geneva troops the first three years," Herrera-Snow said. "Last year, I asked St. Charles to get involved and this year others asked if they could contribute. The project grew by word-of-mouth."

State Sen. Chris Lauzen of the 25th District was on hand to congratulate the girls and their leaders.

"The generosity of spirit of all the Girl Scouts and their mothers and fathers is an inspiration," he said.