By Kelly A. Shue
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
Each week, members of the Riderwood community spend over 100 hours helping U.S. military families overseas. Since 2004, these dedicated volunteers, in partnership with the Greenbelt, Md. American Legion Post 136, have collected and clipped approximately 500,000 coupons to support U.S. military families in Saudi Arabia and in three locations in Japan.
The result is almost half a million dollars in total consumer savings for our countrymen and women overseas.
The money is in the mail
Each week, Riderwood’s coupon collectors find their mailboxes stocked with hundreds of coupons, most often in the Sunday newspaper inserts. Residents throughout the campus either cut the coupons themselves or deposit their pages of coupons in collectors’ mailboxes. Individual coupons range in consumer value from ten cents to more than two dollars.
“Every Sunday morning, my mailbox is stuffed full of Sunday newspaper coupons,” says Grace Harr, who leads the resident-run project.
Harr admits she spends at least 20 hours each week clipping the donated coupons, and more than 100 other community members help her. However, due to the generosity and support of the Riderwood community, 100 volunteer hours each week are no longer sufficient to clip all the donated coupons.
Powerful partnership
Now, in addition to mailing the clipped coupons overseas, auxiliary members of the Greenbelt American Legion help clip and sort the numerous coupons collected at the community. Every Tuesday, several Riderwood volunteers take the cut and uncut coupons to the American Legion, where they are sorted by denomination, packaged into one-pound sealed envelopes, and then shipped overseas.