Students, businesses, DAR support veterans
They say 'Thank you for fighting for America'
By Joann Groff joann@theacorn.com

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers CARDS OF CHEER- Agoura High School students, from left, Kaitlyn Wilson, 18, Hannah Teitelbaum, 15, and Charlotte Barillier, 17, hold up handmade holiday cards that classmates created to send to wounded U.S. soldiers at a hospital in Germany.

When Carri Neithardt inherited stacks of old family documents and photographs this summer, she learned that her greatgrandmother had been a Daughter of the American Revolution. Neithardt decided to apply herself and get involved in the local chapter of the DAR.

Now, before the processing of her application has even been completed, Neithardt has become the chair of Project Patriot, a DAR effort that will send more than 1,200 cards to injured soldiers recuperating in Germany.

The Conejo Valley chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution sends care packages every year to wounded soldiers at Landstulh Regional Medical Center in Germany. This year, the group decided to send cards too.

Neithardt went straight to Treasured Memories, a scrapbooking store in Oak Park, and asked owner Christine Mesko for a large donation of cardstock and stickers. Next she asked her niece Emma Powell, a seventh-grader at Los Cerritos Middle School, and nephew Jack Powell, a fourthgrader at Lang Ranch Elementary School, to see if their classes wanted to get involved.

The classes got to work while Neithardt made one more call, to Agoura High School. Her daughter, Charlotte Barillier, is senior class treasurer at the school. Neithardt came in to ask if the Associated Student Body organization would be interested in helping out.

"I told them about the DAR and about the project, and they just went nuts," Neithardt said. "They really went crazy. They said they didn't think just the 40 to 60 members in the council should be the only ones involved, but that everybody should do it."

Any teacher willing to give up some time pitched in for the cause, and they, along with the Agoura High students, produced more than 1,150 cards. Charlotte and her peers in ASB notified teachers and brought supplies to class to use for the project. They set up a card-making station and urged students to come in during breaks and make cards.

"I think everything my mom did was so great," Charlotte said. "She really did so much, and beyond that, it was also a lot of people around us that wanted to help. The kids were so excited, and cards were made in science classrooms and Spanish classrooms and math- every type of class."

Neithardt said she was touched by some of the messages the students wrote to the soldiers.

One letter read:

"My father was in the Vietnam War and has told me many stories of the hardships and fears of war. I couldn't imagine why someone would want to go through that physical and emotional pain. I learned as I grew that it's because you love us and want to keep us safe. And now I thank you for that. I can't imagine my life without my father, and pray that you return home to your family safe."

Another reads:

"Thank you for fighting for America so I won't have to be afraid to go to school, that I can preach about my religion without getting hurt, that my family can sit at a table together and we're not sitting under it, from fear and terror of not ever seeing our home again. I can't imagine the United States without the backbone of the wonderful soldiers we have today."

After picking up the last batch of cards from the high school Monday, Neithardt is putting finishing touches on the hundreds of envelopes she will send to Germany.

"My chapter is so thrilled," Neithardt said. "I don't feel like I did much. I just gathered some people together, and it all came together."