When her daughter said, “Mom, read this,” Georgi Ann Lilly looked at the e-mail from her daughter’s friend in Kuwait. She didn’t stop there.

Lilly, financial support assistant at the U-M Health System’s KMS Billing Services, knew this was something too important to keep to herself. She spread the word. The word got to Gloria Santelle, financial support assistant at Physicians Billing Services, that there was a need for personal items for an Army unit serving in a Kuwait mailroom and soldiers serving in Iraq.

In the past year Care Boxes put together by Lilly, Santelle and their co-workers have been making their way from Ann Arbor to points in the Mideast desert.

Bake sales and other events have supplied funds for postage and the purchase of personal care items for the Care Boxes. Football coach Lloyd Carr autographed a Rose Bowl football for a raffle. The athletic department donated U-M logo shirts and hats to raffle and send to the troops. The U-M Health System’s Survival Flight crew did the same. Funds and individual donations netted enough goods to fill more than 30 large boxes during the past year.

The soldiers’ wish lists come from a contact within the mailroom unit and recently included a request from a lieutenant for student art to brighten their lobby area. The lobby is where as many as 400 soldiers a day wait for hours for the distribution of mail.

These soldiers are on relief from Iraq and are anxious for news from home and for something more colorful than the desert sun and the drab of a military waiting room. In response to the request, Arts at Michigan and the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority are making ArtRide posters available for shipment to Kuwait.

Because the Care Boxes are going to mailroom personnel, the requests often include bandages due to a rash of paper cuts among the workers. Another request is for hand sanitizer. While the wish lists consist of rather mundane and what might be considered inconsequential items, they are of great importance and use to these troops, organizers say.

Among items recently shipped were 26 tubes of lip balm, 87 disposable razors, 64 pocket packs of Kleenex, 25 packs of assorted gum, 24 AA batteries, night cream, cleansing cream, body wash, lotion, sunblock, skin freshener and two tubes of skin management for men.

Packed among these grooming items were eight dozen chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies, 20 packs of Breath Savers, Gatorade mix, lemonade mix, beef jerky, Skittles, Hershey’s assorted miniatures, Goldfish crackers, bubble gum, mixed nuts, Pringles chips, Pop Tarts and other treats.

One soldier, whose unit was moving forward to a logistical post inside Iraq, wrote in an e-mail, “Food of any kind would always be appreciated. We will be going to MREs [meals ready to eat] for every meal. For those of you that don’t know, these are cold bag meals that have a shelf life of 10 years. I am sure you can imagine how good they taste.”

Another soldier reported to Lilly that a couple of boxes, though sent at different times, arrived in Kuwait at the same time. “The postal system is funny,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Nobody knows as much as we do about how ridiculous the system can be. Anyway, I will leave the box out for the day shift and the customers to sift through. I snagged the party mix for myself. I also want to thank you for the shirts and caps. Although I am a huge Alabama fan, I did take a shirt and cap. I do like how the U of M plays football and they play it with integrity. I may adopt the U of M as my second school. Hey, we really do appreciate what you and your friends have done for the troops over here. Letters are nice, but there is nothing like getting a box of goodies in the mail.”

To contribute, contact Lilly at galilly@umich.edu.