SENDING ‘A LITTLE PIECE OF HOME’
‘Mrs. Jacky’ has been making care packages for deployed soldiers since 2003
Jacky Connelly still remembers the comforting letters and care packages her mom sent her dad while he was stationed overseas in the Army during World War II.
For her dad, Al Fillwalk, the games, cigarettes and other items were a tangible expression of affection from her mom, Milly Fillwalk, and came with sweet reminders of home.
And they turned into something tangibly sweet after Al Fillwalk, who didn’t smoke, traded the cigarettes for chocolate, Connelly said.
In 2003, Connelly renewed that long distance affection, sending care packages to “Mrs.
Jacky’s Soldiers” military personnel stationed overseas and “serving in harm’s way,” as well as a USO quarantine base in Germany.
She and several dozen volunteers send food boxes with granola, protein and snack bars, ramen noodles, peanut butter; soap boxes with toiletries; media boxes with books, DVDs and CDs; and holiday boxes with decorations.
Until the pandemic, volunteers for Mrs. Jacky’s Soldiers packed up the boxes twice monthly at an Oak Lawn Park District facility. Since the pandemic started, they have shifted the efforts to their homes. Connelly often has many boxes piled up near her front door waiting to send overseas, she said.
It’s no small effort, either. The USPS flat rate boxes they use cost $19.60 apiece to ship, and the rates are expected to rise Jan. 24.
“He really appreciated it,” said Connelly of her father, who died in 2004, a year after she started the volunteer effort. “When he did his tour of duty through Europe, he said when he’d get to a safe base and mail would be waiting, mail call would be the most important part of the day.”
That’s the sentiment of the soldiers who receive the goods, too.
“To get packages from people I don’t know who wanted to go out of their way so we can take care of ourselves … It reminded me of who we really fight for,” said Staff Sgt. Kyle Gleeson, a Chicago police officer and member of Johnson-Phelps VFW Post No. 5220 in Oak Lawn. “It puts everything into perspective.”
Gleeson was serving in the Army in Afghanistan when he received the packages with food, socks and toiletries. He said he was touched that someone he didn’t even know would think of him and his comrades. Plus the packages were “hands-down” the largest and most frequent he received.
“We’d do our mail call, you’d hear your name, you don’t know if it’s a letter or packages,” said Gleeson. “You go pick up your mail and there’s this giant box filled with candy and snacks.
“It’s a great feeling, like Christmas!”
James Smiley, a Marine who was serving in Iraq when he received packages from Connelly in 2009, agreed.
“Any contact from home makes you feel great,” said Smiley, who lives in Plainfield. “You expect your family to try to send you some stuff, but to get it from complete strangers felt special.”
Smiley has an indirect connection to Connelly, having attended high school with her children.
“It was surprising to be so far away and see just how small the world can be,” Smiley said.
Connelly was working as a program instructor at the Oak Lawn Park District when she started sending the packages. The mother of a youngster in one of her programs was about to be leave for Iraq, and Connelly put out a basket seeking snacks and other items to send with her as she was deployed.
She received mounds of donations and then started hearing about other soldiers in need of a boost.
“After one year of doing it by myself, I realized I couldn’t and people had dropped off notes with postage funds saying if I ever needed help to call,” said Connelly, a lifelong member of the Johnson-Phelps VFW Auxiliary, which has helped with fundraising.
Connelly’s dad got to hear about her project before he died and was all for it.
“My dad always said, you have to keep your spirits high (when serving during wars) and that’s not easy,” said Connelly.
“We have been told each box is like getting a little piece of home and that we took the time to care that they are fighting for our freedom,” Connelly said.
More information helping with the project is wtih VFW Post 5220, 9514 S. 52nd Avenue, Oak Lawn, IL 60453, or with Connelly at MrsJSoldiers@gmail.com.