The Bryant Library is asking the community to help support members of the New York National Guard’s 42nd Infantry Division through a care package drive running through Sept. 30.
The initiative, which will collect snacks, toiletries, games and handwritten letters for local soldiers deployed to the Middle East, is being led by librarian Mary Carol Moore, who called the effort a personal passion project.
Moore, the library’s head of circulation, said the idea grew out of her long-standing commitment to community service and her own military family ties. Her father and brother both served in the U.S. Army, and she has organized similar efforts privately for deployed relatives.
“I come from a military family, so helping out military has always been something dear to my heart,” Moore said.
Moore said a longtime library patron and former board member, Maj. Daniel Baek of the New York National Guard informed her that local service members had recently been deployed overseas. That conversation, paired with the library’s tradition of service projects — such as backpack and school supply drives — inspired her to make this the next initiative.
“It’s a great morale booster,” Moore said about the soldiers receiving the care packages, “especially if there’s soldiers that don’t have family or friends that are on this stateside to look after them when you send a big enough package to, like when I sent my brother, when he was in the Middle East, you send enough packages, then he gets to share with anybody that didn’t get anything.”
Suggested donations include nonperishable snacks, travel-sized toiletries, socks, travel games and letters of support.
The library has organized card-writing campaigns with local children in the past, but this is the first time it is sending care packages filled with goods.
Items can be dropped off at the library, 2 Paper Mill Road in Roslyn. The library will handle packaging and shipping.
Moore said she is not setting a specific goal for the drive, as she is confident that the Roslyn community will respond generously.
“Whatever we do, people always come out to support,” she said. “We’re very lucky that way.”
For more information, call the Bryant Library at 516-621-2240.
