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Students buy 1,300 care packages for soldiers

Students buy 1,300 care packages for soldiers

Loyola students used the leftover money on their meal plans to buy more than 1,300 care packages for soldiers stationed in Iraq. “I was planning on 125-150 [packages] max,” said Aramark’s director of operations William Langlois, who came up with the idea. “It really blew my mind.”

By Alexandra Jonker  |  Student reporter

The end of the academic year means several things to Loyola students: packing up the dorm, selling back books—and spending any extra meal plan money on unsettling amounts of candy and ice cream.

This past semester, Aramark’s director of operations, William Langlois, offered students a more impactful (and far less sugary) option for their unused meal money: providing care packages for the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq.

“I knew that they had extra money on their cards,” he says. “I wanted them to use it and maybe it could do something good.”

Langlois got in touch with Lt. Col. Matthew J. Yandura and Master Sgt. Chad King from Loyola’s ROTC department to collaborate on the project and figure out what needed to go into the care packages. In the end, the $20 packages were filled with supplies such as Band-Aids, baby wipes, hand sanitizer, toothpaste, and toothbrushes.

With only fliers and a few posts on social media, the initiative relied on word-of-mouth marketing—and it still was able to surpass all goals that its leaders had projected. By the end of the semester, Loyola students purchased more than 1,300 packages, which will be shipped to soldiers over the July 4 weekend. 

“I was planning on 125-150 [packages] max,” Langlois says. “It really blew my mind—one student even bought 60 [packages] because he had so much money.”

In an interview with WBBM radio, Lt. Col. David Bowlus, chaplain of the 101st Airborne Division, expressed his gratitude for Loyola students and their support of soldiers, especially those from their own generation. “Some Americans, I guess, [have] compassion fatigue, or care package fatigue,” he says. “Americans continuing to do this for us means a whole lot.”

Yandura, when he spoke to WBBM, called the initiative, “an incredible statement about the men and women that (Loyola) attracts.”