Posted on 01/01/2006 10:38:15 AM PST by SandRat
Fourteen-year-old Kaylee Marie Radzyminski peers into a music CD Saturday in her grandparentsÕ Sierra Vista home. Radzyminski is visiting for the holidays from Cleveland, Tenn. She has started a program were CDs and DVDs can be donated to U.S. troops. The program is called Tunes 4 the Troops. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review)
SIERRA VISTA — U.S. Navy Sea Cadet Kaylee Marie Radzyminski, 14, wants your movies, video games and music compact discs for shipment to troops overseas.
Any game, album or book in a compact disc format will work for Radzyminski’s Tunes 4 the Troops program, based out of Cleveland, Tenn.
For the holidays, she’s in Sierra Vista visiting her grandparents, Jack and Nancy Radzyminski, and thought the surrounding Fort Huachuca community would be a good place to spread the word about Tunes 4 the Troops, which she began in September.
“Right now we probably have over 1,500 CDs, DVDs, and books on CD. We started really putting emphasis on it around late September,” Radzyminski said. “We’re preparing to make our first shipment in January. Also in January, I’m hand delivering a batch to the men on the USS Tennessee.”
The Tennessee crew will be at port in Kings Bay, Ga., her mother Stephanie said.
Radzyminski aspires to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., when she finishes at Cleveland High School, adding she has a “very strong interest in nuclear engineering.”
Such mind-bending aptitude apparently runs in the family. Her grandfather, a retired U.S. Marine Corps major, was an aerospace engineer.
The Tunes 4 the Troops idea struck her after spending time talking to active duty personnel while she was at U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps training in Florida.
“They said the one thing that they crave while overseas is entertainment,” she said.
First, she started digging through her own movie and music collection, and the idea grew bigger.
The first overseas packages, each comprising 250 discs, will begin shipment sometime this month. They are to be mailed to chaplains for further dissemination to the overseas troops.
“My goal by Christmas of ’08 is to have collected a half a million,” Radzyminski said.
A large-market country and western radio station in Chattanooga, Tenn., US101-FM plans to sponsor an event in support of the Tunes 4 the Troops program in January or February, hopefully with some help from the Nashville music scene, Radzyminski’s mother said.
Now, through her high school in Tennessee, the Tunes 4 the Troops program is on its way to non-profit organizational status.
There’s probably a little help coming from yet another Tennessee institution as well — she has applied for a grant from the Tennessee Titans professional football team.
How you can help
tunes4thetroops.20m.com is the Web site for the Tunes 4 the Troops program, with additional photos and details.
CDs, DVDs and video games and books on disc can be sent to Tunes 4 the Troops, P.O. Box 2008, Cleveland TN 37320.
Monetary donations can be sent to Southern Heritage Bank, P.O. Box 4730, Cleveland TN 37320, Attn: Tunes 4 the Troops.
Very cool story!! This young lady ROCKS!!
Hey coop - don't know if you're on SandRat's ping list or not. If you are, I apologize for the double ping!
ping
BTTT
She sure does!!!
Bumping this one again -- just cool!
I thought Old Sarge was on my pinglist, then again didn't he ask us a while ago to take him off our pings because of bandwidth issues?
Yes -- when he was in Kuwait and at first in Iraq it was really bad!! I'm not sure if he still wants off or not!
Sarge???
Bump
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