Volunteers help soldiers

By CASEY RESSLER-Valley Life editor

When soldiers arrive in the dusty desert of Afghanistan, they will have a little hand from home on their uniforms.

A group of Valley sewers and quilters recently went to work to give the soldiers a hand -- by sewing insignias on uniforms to help with a backlog of sewing.

Kathy Buirge, who works at the Directorage of Logistics at Fort Richardson, first became aware of the sewing problem through her husband, who also works with DOL in the transportation area. He told her there are only two full-time sewing machines at the laundry facility, and there was plenty of sewing work to go around.

"I spoke to the chief of the Logistics Operation Branch, Tom Rentz, who oversees the laundry function and became aware of just how large a task this was," Buirge wrote in an e-mail. "I am a member of the Valley Quilters Guild, so I mentioned that I might be able to enlist some assistance from them."

The DOL is in charge of issuing uniforms to soldiers deploying to Afghanistan. Each soldier is issued four sets of desert battle dress uniforms (BDUs) before deploying, and insignias must be sewn on each one. The Valley Quilters Guild first got behind the project on Sept. 20, when the guild had reserved the Palmer depot for the regular monthly sewing session.

"I sent e-mails to the members who have e-mail and asked for their support. I arrived with about 160 shirts and the insignia and we set to work," Buirge wrote.

That first day, 11 people showed up -- Peggy Benson, Susan and Sandy Boettcher, Deb Carney, Carol Hill, Betsy Korzeniewski, Denise Slauson, Fran Strother, Peggy Tackett, Bev Winkler and Buirge. Buirge then reserved the DOL conference room to help, but only Slauson showed up for that session. An employee, Marlene Runkle, took uniforms home to sew to help.

The Strothers then arranged for the guild to use the Cottonwood Creek Public Safety Building, and Buirge, Strother, Benson and Cherri Cooper finished the work. In all, the Valley effort helped by completing 320 uniforms -- enough for 80 soldiers. There were 800 soldiers deploying.