[caption id="attachment_580" align="alignright" width="300" caption="left to right: Parishioners Robert Ty Reed, David Swain, Gay Swain, John Meyer, Bonny Connell (woman, seated), John Marshall, and Russ Ryan"][/caption]

For the third year in a row, members of the Church of the Redeemer in downtown Sarasota are sending care packages to US military troops.

This year, the parishioners began gathering supplies on Veteran’s Day, collecting donated toiletries, snacks, socks, DVDS, books, and purchasing 550-minute phone cards and Holy Bibles, to send to American troops fighting in Afghanistan. The group hopes to send 250 boxes out in time for the soldiers to receive them by Christmas.

Each year, the Redeemer effort is led by David Swain, Captain (Ret.) US Marine Corps, in conjunction with the Military Officers Association of Sarasota, of which he is a member.

Swain, who served tours in Vietnam, says he knows what a “morale booster” it is to receive care packages from countrymen and women back home. ““I’ve been there, I know what it’s like,” Swain says. “These boxes will be air-dropped to soldiers serving on the front lines of the war. We’ve got 100-soldier units on the ground spread out far from each other across very rough terrain; air-dropping is the only way to get to them.”

The boxes cost about $11 each to mail and Swain says the postage for up to 250 boxes was donated by parishioners and friends of Redeemer. For more information or to make a donation, contact the Church of the Redeemer at 955.4263, or visit www.redeemersarasota.org.