Talk of the Town : Odd Fellows: Funny name but serious missions
By Marge Neal
(posted11/09/2006)
OK, so it’s a funny name, but the members of Fort Howard’s Lodge no. 4, International Order of Odd Fellows aren’t up to any funny business.
In fact, right now many of them are involved in a project that’s quite serious — they’re sending care packages to American, and as often as possible, Dundalk-Edgemere soldiers serving in Iraq.
The program is called Marine Mail, and not because one branch is favored over another, co-chairman Dennis Brown said.
“One member of the lodge, Ed Hook III, was serving in Iraq,” Brown said. “He’s a Sparrows Point High School graduate and he did two tours.”
Dennis Brown (left) and Ed Hook Jr. prepared to pack boxes Saturday to send to troops in Iraq. photo by Marge Neal
Lodge members started sending snacks and other goodies to Hook, a U.S. Marine who wrote back about many members of his own unit who never received packages or mail of any kind from friends or family members.
“We couldn’t have that,” Brown said, and the idea of Marine Mail was born.
John Molter co-chairs the program along with Ed Hook Jr. and Brown. Thanks to lots of community support, a newly built closet at the lodge stays full of nonperishable food and personal hygiene items, writing paper, envelopes, pens, playing cards, magazines, CDs and DVDs.
“We empty it out and it fills again,” Brown said of the closet that was built to house the supplies once it became apparent Marine Mail would be around for a while.
On Saturday, half a dozen or so members gathered at the lodge to pack boxes.
The men silently fell into a human assembly line that brought items from the closet and stacked them on tables for packing.
The Odd Fellows started sending packages to servicemen and women in Iraq in July 2005, and Brown estimates the lodge has mailed between 300 and 350 boxes since then.
And it isn’t as easy as it used to be to send care packages to troops abroad.
“Nothing can be addressed to ‘any soldier’ anymore,” Brown said. “Packages that aren’t addressed to a specific soldier won’t be delivered.”
The Fellows also hoped the government would be able to ship the boxes, but red tape has made that impossible too, Brown said.
Only Department of Defense-approved packages can be sent on the feds’ tab, so the locals had to come up with postage as well as the goodies themselves.
Then Brown discovered a flat rate box the U.S. Postal Service offers that can be mailed for $8.10.
“We were sending bigger boxes but it cost a lot more to send them and it wasn’t really the best deal,” Brown said. “Those kids have to be able to carry what we send them, so we like to keep the items small, and the smaller boxes are working out great.”
Items that have been sent to soldiers include small individual packages of cookies, candy, noodles, canned meats like Spam and Vienna sausages, tubes of potato chips, soup, beef jerky, canned tuna and chicken, peanuts, popcorn and breakfast bars.
“Some of these kids are in places where they have access to microwaves and refrigerators, but some of them are living in the field without those kind of coneniences,” Brown said. “So we like to send things that don’t need electric can openers or much preparation.”
The group is grateful to donations past, present and future. In addition to goodies, donors can give sheets of $4.05 stamps — or cash — to help defray the shipping costs.
Brown said the Odd Fellows will gear up a little more for the approaching holiday season to make sure no soldier feels forgotten.
The group also welcomes the names of local soldiers serving in Iraq and other places abroad so packages can be sent to them as well.
“We’d love to have more local kids to send these packages to,” Brown said. “We appreciate what they’re doing.”
To make a donation or submit the name of a soldier serving abroad, contact us and let us know.
This article is credited to the Dundalk Eagle Newspaper |
