Heal Pain of War,
One Pillow at a Time
article from The Chatham Courier
Friday Aug 12th, 2011
Since February, the 88-year-young Luria has sewn at least 300 pressure pillows for active and wounded soldiers for Operation Jersey Cares, a non-profit, organization that, since 2007, has shipped 250,000 pounds of variety care packages to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and comforted to wounded military personnel along the East Coast.
During a visit to her home on Thursday, July 28, Luria, a vibrant and compassionate descendant of “The Greatest Generation,” said she became involved thanks to the effects of a long-ago war on her own family: World War II.
Both Luria’s brother, Joseph Grobarz, served as a sergeant in the Signal Corps, while her husband, Roger, who died in 1999, was an Air Force officer who “flew the hump” numerous times between India and China.
Luria particularly remembered how the war impacted her brother, who had encountered hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese.
“When he came back, he was so changed. He was very nervous, and he wouldn’t go up the street to buy a pack of cigarettes. He just wore black socks and everything, and was in fear that somebody was behind him just like he was fighting,” she said.
She also recalled her mother’s reaction to his initial departure.
“What my mother did- when he got notice that he was supposed to leave and was going to take off from Fort Lewis in Seattle, Washington, she said ‘I have to see him,’ and got on a train, and she said, ‘I don’t know when I’ll see him again.’
“It took her four days on the train to get up to Seattle, and she got a spot near the camp and every day she would go get some goodies and go over to the boys just to see them.”
Preschool Connection
Luria got involved with Operation Jersey Cares after learning about it through her daughter, Gail Smith of Westfield. Smith founded the Gingham Giraffe Preschool in 1990, located in Corpus Christi Church in Chatham Township, and taught the grandchildren of East Hanover resident Liz Hackett, who directs Operation Jersey Cares sewing projects.
She said she approaches the task of pillow-making as a pleasant way to spend time with her daughter and niece Virginia Cirelli of Summit, where Luria was born and raised.
“The three of us usually get together every Tuesday or so, and we make quite a few. We sew for two to three hours, we chat, we laugh. I think we just really enjoy doing it and getting together to do it.”
In fact, she mentioned a recent get-together in which she, Smith, Cirelli, and 13 other relatives and close friends met at Luria’s house for a group pillow-making session, which the group plans on doing again in September.
Supplied
Luria doesn’t have to lift a finger to find materials and supplies for the pillows.
Hackett supplies Smith with polyester fiberfill for stuffing the 100 percent cotton, machine-washable pillows, which are 10- to 12 inches long and sewn with recycled scrap fabrics.
Hackett receives the stuffing from former U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Mario “Gunny” Monaco, who owns of Jackie Evans Inc., a clothing manufacturer in Passaic specializing in Girl Scout vests and sashes.
A few weeks ago, Monaco visited Luria to give her a framed Certificate of Appreciation from the Marine Corps League.
“She was overwhelmed to have me show up in uniform and say thank you, but I said, ‘I should be thanking you for the pride you take in you work,” he said.
Hackett said that approximately 1,000 pillows have been sewn by “total strangers,” which are included in 40- to 45- pound boxes of variety packages shipped out or driven weekly to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Md., and Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C.
Hackett, who averages three to six boxes weekly, offered a glimpse into her own incentive.
“You’ve got to teach kids that freedom isn’t free, and to be cognizant of the needs of others,” she said.
Of Operation Jersey Care’s 65 volunteers, nobody picks up a paycheck, and the operation, originally located at the American Legion Hall in Somerville for its first three years, is currently being run out of a bankrupt Drug Fair in Raritan that the realtor lets them use free of charge.
The operation also garners support from Adopt a Soldier and the American Recreational Military Services, along with typical cash and product donations, occasional supermarket sweeps, and fundraising events.
The website, operationjerseycares.org, includes thank-you letters from recipients of the packages, and Luria has received thank-you emails from soldiers in Afghanistan.