About
Platoon Partners:
Platoon Partners is an outreach project of the Concordville-Chadds
Ford Rotary Club designed to provide the United States
troops in Iraq with small items including but not limited
to toiletries, light entertainment, personal supplies,
and communication facilities on a monthly basis for
as long as the war in Iraq lasts.
Since there
is a large number of U.S. personnel in Iraq the distribution
of donated items will be by platoon. With the help of
the military leadership, email contacts on the ground
will be made available so that donating individuals
and institutions will have a direct line of communication.
This will insure that items sent are specific to the
needs of the assigned platoon. The Concordville –
Chadds Ford Rotary Club will manage the contact information
and follow-up.
This project
is much larger than one Rotary Club or other institution
can handle. Therefore, other clubs, institutions companies
and individuals are encouraged to take on the responsibility
of supporting a platoon. The Concordville – Chadds
Ford Rotary Club will spread the word and provide encouragement
to all interested parties.
On a monthly
basis, participating sponsors will mail their packages
to their assigned unit. There will be a general delivery
address for surplus donations. The cost of mailing will,
in most cases, be borne by the sponsor of a platoon.
If mailing costs preclude participation, application
for financial assistance should be made to the Rotary
Club of Concordville – Chadds Ford. To help defray
the cost of mailing packages and to support this project,
individuals and institutions are encouraged to make
financial donations to the Concordville Rotary Foundation,
a 501 C3.
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How
Platoon Partners Got Started:
Platoon Partners was started during
the Christmas Holiday of 2006. When Rotarian Eric Balcavage,
a chiropractor from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania received
an email from his brother, Lt. Colonel Robert Mark Balcavage,
battalion commander of the 1-501 Parachute Infantry Regiment
out of Fort Richardson, Alaska. His brother who had recently
had been deployed with his troops to Iraq were lacking
many of the basic necessities and comforts from home.
Eric asked what he could do to help and his brother said
that a group out of Alaska was getting businesses to sponsor
platoons in his battalion. Eric sent out emails to friends
and family who started to get on board with the adopting
program.
When he spoke
to his local rotary about the project, they decided to
take it on as a club project. As word spread, more people
and Rotary clubs began to get involved the program has
continued to grow. Eric's initial goal for the program
was to support all the platoons in the combat zone. A
reporter upon hearing him say that asked him if that was
too lofty a goal and unrealistic. Eric responded by quoting
Cherie Carter-Scott, "Ordinary people believe only
in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what
is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible.
And, by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see
it as possible."
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