Million Thanks Teener

One million four hundred thousand. That's the number of members in the US Armed Forces today. That's also the number of letters sixteen-year old Shauna Fleming from Orange County, California wants to send to them. She believes that each of our Service Members symbolically deserves a letter of thanks for their service to our wonderful country.

Is she asking for the moon? Well, she has already sent out 1,380,000 letters, with the one millionth letter presented to President George W. Bush as the Commander-in-Chief.

Shauna was actually 15 and a freshman student at Lutheran High School in Orange when her father, Michael, challenged her to do something positive for the military men and women serving our country. Michael himself has founded an annual campaign called Valentines For Troops, and has distributed over a million and a half Valentines to US troops by March last year.

According to a March 31, 2004 press release linked to Shauna's website:

Shauna approached Gregg Pinick, Lutheran High Principal, with the idea of using the letter campaign as a school service project.

“I can’t think of a better way for students to express themselves for the sacrifices made by the men and women in our military, than to try to collect and distribute letters of love and appreciation. The students are not asking people to support any military cause, but to take time and write..." Read the rest of the press release...

Military personnel,especially those stationed abroad, regard letters as gold. Some of them do not even have family and to receive a letter from a total stranger expressing appreciation for the job they do means a lot to them.

May is National Military Appreciation Month.

Visit Shauna Fleming's website, http://www.amillionthanks.org/.

To listen to Shauna's web-based A Million Thanks radio program, drop by wsRadio.com.

The National Military Appreciation Month website can be reached at http://www.nmam.org.

God bless the USA!