Noah Getty is getting a lot of mail.
Getty, a recent graduate of SJO, is currently at the United States Marine Corps Recruit Training.
His mother, Jendie Getty, contacted District #169 computer teacher Candi Appl about writing letters to Noah and the members of his platoon.
“Noah had mentioned to her that many of the recruits in his platoon were not getting mail, and anything that they could receive during mail call would help cheer them up and get them through boot camp,” Appl said.
Appl was Noah’s teacher in Middle School and thought letter writing would be a good project for her computer classes.
Appl said she did not tell the students what they could or could not write to Getty and his fellow soldiers.
She encouraged them to thank the soldiers for their service, include information about themselves and what was going on in the community and school.
Appl also encouraged students to share if they have family members or family friends that have served in the military.
“I ended up finding out that we have students with parents in the military that are currently serving overseas.,” Appl said.
Appl said she was surprised by how honest the students were in their letters and also how they shared encouraging words, sayings and praise for the recruits.
Appl showed the students a few videos of Marines at boot camp to allow them to see a little of what life of a new recruit is like.
Appl said the videos showed the beginning days of boot camp as well as the marines swimming. The students saw how the recruits had to be extremely disciplined.
“They took ideas from the videos we watched, and talked about how they’d be scared of a drill sergeant yelling,” Appl said. “They were quite excited to be able to write the letters and send some good cheer to the recruits. The ideas were all theirs, no “form” letter.’
Appl has mailed 200 letters so far. She said she hopes her students can learn that there are men and women willing and ready to devote themselves to military services voluntarily to keep the country safe and the rights of passage they must go through in order to do so.
“In addition, I hope they realize that because of those individuals we can have the freedoms we have and not be worried about the thoughts of living in a war-torn country,“ she said.
Appl said she hopes the community realizes that teachers within the community try their hardest to reach out to those they can to involve the students in community service related projects.
“This project was the simple result of a mom asking me to have my students encourage not only her son, but others in his platoon,” she said.
