11.09.17
Each year, in celebration of Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving, Lois Lenski adopts an American soldier for the holidays. This year, we are adopting two soldiers, Elgin Bronson, a Corporal in the United States Marines and Vince Tran, Airman First Class in the Air Force.
Please help us support Corporal Bronson and Airman Vince Tran! The Thanking Our Troops Campaign runs from Friday, November 10th through Friday, November 17th. We ask each Lenski student to write a letter of encouragement and support that will be sent to our adopted soldiers in Afghanistan and Japan. See attached letter template. We are also asking for the following specific donations to include in care packages:
Lip balm, Travel Size Lotion, Disposable Razors
Playing cards, Hacky sacks, etc.
I-tunes gift cards
Beef Jerky, Fruit Candy
Cough drops
Bagged candy and gum (no chocolate, and no leftover Halloween candy please)
Cereal bars, Cereal
Glow Sticks
Microwave dry foods
Individual flavor packets for bottled water (Propel, Gatorade, Crystal Light)
Paperback puzzle books (crosswords, sudoku, etc.)
Books and Magazines
The goal of this campaign is to brighten the spirits of our sponsored soldiers during the winter holidays, and to help Lenski's students honor the contributions of the United States military. Thank you for participating in Lenski's Thanking Our Troops Campaign. We appreciate your support!
Questions? Please contact Sarah Bernauer.
Vince Tran joined the Air Force in 2016 to serve while still young and nimble and has been having a lot of fun learning a lot about how the government operates. He turns 26 in January, grew up in Reading, PA and graduated from Penn State University with dual degrees in Theatre and Telecommunications. His hobbies include theatre, film, reading, writing, painting, drawing, and laughing (basically if it's a way to express an idea then he's probably dabbled in it). His current home station is RAF Mildenhall in England (about 2 hours north of London), but he is deployed at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan (about 1 hour north from the capital of Kabul). There are a total of 7 soldiers his office in Afghanistan where he works as a Command and Control Operations Specialist. He writes, "I'm really excited to meet you and the kids and I think that we have a very fun and rewarding journey ahead! Take care in the meantime and I hope to hear from you soon!"
Elgin Bronson wanted to join the military since the age of 5 after seeing his Uncle Kris Lundien come home from his first deployment with the army. He pursued his career by working out with the Marine recruits after school his senior year of high school. Once he graduated from high school he left for bootcamp. On June 15, 2015, he started his journey of bootcamp in San Diego, California which lasted for 13 weeks. Upon completion of bootcamp, he journeyed to South Carolina for training in his specific field of work. After completing his training in March of 2016 he went to Okinawa, Japan which is his first duty station. While he has been there he has traveled to South Korea, Philippines, and the Indonesia Islands for extra training. This September he ranked to Corporal. Since the beginning of his journey he has enjoyed his career and plans to continue for the next 20 years.
