OI ships about 50,000 C-rats from 13 distribution centers
sprinkled across the country
Gilroy – When Karen Humber’s son, Lars Mauerman, joined the U.S. Marines last year, so did she. Now, she feels responsible for all of the nation’s armed forces.
“When he signed up, I signed up too,” Humber said over the weekend. “To support the troops, whether he’s deployed or not, is very important to me.”
Mauerman recently returned from basic training. He has at least another year before he ships to Iraq, but Saturday, on his 19th birthday, Mauerman and his mother hosted a party to spread the word about Operation Interdependence, a grass roots organization that lives to spread cheer to U.S. troops around the world.
The guest of honor was career military man Al Renteria, who founded OI in 2001 and hopes to one day send a care package every month to each of the military’s 250,000 soldiers deployed across the globe.
Renteria is well on his way. Currently OI ships about 50,000 of what he calls C-rats, or civilian rations, from 13 distribution centers sprinkled across the country, including one in Morgan Hill.
In his 26 years as a Marine, Renteria learned two very important things. One, mail call is the best time of any grunt’s day. Two, way too much mail doesn’t get to where it was intended to go.
“What I saw as a service member was a waste of money and a lot of broken hearts,” Renteria said.
Military mail fails to reach its destination for a number of reasons, but mostly the system is just overwhelmed with undeliverable mail from well-meaning but misguided friends and families of service members.
Renteria doesn’t want to replace “mom’s box. No one is ever going to love Lars more than his mom.” But he does want to ensure that every service member realizes how much people back in the states appreciate their sacrifices.
The boxes are simple – a few toiletries, some candy, and a letter – but they are powerful.
“Mail call is awesome,” said Gilroy High School graduate Molly Howe, 18, a Marine lance corporal who already spent one tour in Iraq and will return next year. “I know there were Marines who didn’t receive packages. Agencies like this helped out a lot.”
But if they’re not packaged properly and shipped correctly, the packages won’t reach the soldiers. So Renteria’s job is to streamline the process and teaching people who want to help how to help.
“We train our volunteers to become the manpower behind those goods, so when they do get overseas, [the military] has the means to receive and distribute them without creating a security issue,” Renteria, who traveled to Gilroy from San Diego, said.
That means that every box must meet specific size and packing requirements, and that every box that goes out must be inspected. Enter Julie Dawes, a Morgan Hill resident who is OI’s area manager. Dawes gathers all the donated products, inspects all the packages and ships them all out.
“I’m a party of one,” said Dawes, whose father served in the military. She receives packages from all over the western United States.
She said she’s still mailing some of the more than 6,000 homemade Valentines she received from school kids in Idaho.
Fortunately, Dawes is about to get some help, and Gilroy is about to host the newest OI office.
Local developer James Suner has promised to donate some of his office space on Monterey Street to the organization, and the more than two dozen people who showed up at the party Saturday are more than eager to pitch in.
“This is very important,” said city councilman Bob Dillon, who served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam and attended the gathering. “One of the most important parts of any military life is mail call. More importantly, this can be entirely bipartisan. I call on all Gilroyans to make contributions, help pack some boxes, and get this done.”
