From Tri-County with love

            Tri-County students in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade and the Peer Helper class in the high school created around 180 Valentines to be sent to the 248^th Aviation Support Battalion stationed in Kuwait, just in time to be delivered for Valentine’s Day.

            Members of this battalion are all from Iowa and were deployed to Texas in September to train before heading to Kuwait. This battalion includes Joe Dolash, a Sigourney graduate and family friend of Brooke Zittergruen, who helped organize this event with Tri-County teachers and administration.

“Our good friend Joe Dolash from Sigourney had put a picture on Facebook during Christmas of a homemade Christmas card that said ‘Thank you soldier’ and ‘Merry Christmas’ and he said it lifted his spirits,” Zittergruen said. “I got the idea to send these valentines from one classroom and then ended up branching out to multiple classrooms.”

Each class that participated contributed with making their cards, while donations from the community included flavored water packets, beef jerky, hard candy and other snack items. According to Zittergruen, more than 37 pounds of items were shipped in four packages on Saturday.

“They sacrifice a lot for us, so I thought this was something very small we could do for them,” Zittergruen said. “This makes my heart happy to do this for our troops.”