By JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer
MILLTOWN — Veterans are helping veterans through the Milltown VFW’s Backpack Brigade.
Each year, members of Milltown-North Brunswick VFW Clark-Moetz Post 2319 collaborate with Operation Homefront for the annual Backpack Brigade, an effort that collects donations from Dollar Tree customers to provide backpacks to the children of deployed, disabled and deceased soldiers.
“The decision of joining the military is something bigger than them. … They shouldn’t have to worry about school supplies. … If somebody out there cares, somebody out there acknowledges them … they recognize the sacrifice,” said Cathy Kolesar, the co-chair of the Backpack Brigade for the past nine years, whose husband, Bob, is commander of Post 2319.
Roughly 25 members from the post, the men’s auxiliary and the community at large have been sorting school supplies by gender and grade level and then creating backpacks with a year’s worth of supplies for the children since the beginning of July, Kolesar said.
The backpacks themselves are donated by Operation Homefront.
There was also a special donation this year of 20 cases of Girl Scout cookies.
“We’re taking care of our guys,” she said.
The post was expecting to have a representative of Fort Dix pick up 200 backpacks, with a total of 300 to be given out before the beginning of the school year.
“The reaction from the joint base has been jaw-dropping. They cannot believe what we do. It does take hours and hours to do what we do, to sort through everything,” she said.
The effort is daunting, as some of the 20 Dollar Tree stores in Middlesex County can collect up to 1,000 pieces per week of the initiative. Kolesar said the VFW hall is filled with supplies that are arranged per the school supply lists of six different districts.
“If you keep the morale of the family up, the family can then keep the morale of the soldier up,” Kolesar said of the importance of this program.
The VFW will remain busy throughout the next months. Members have already begun the annual Christmas present collection. They also will store any extra school supplies until next year, getting a jumpstart on those backpacks.
Collections of school supplies will be accepted through the first week of September. For more information, visit www.njvfw.org/vfw-post-2319/ or search for the post on Facebook.
Contact Jennifer Amato at [email protected].