Letters From Home launches in Gainesville

GAINESVILLE - Letters From Home, a Gainesville based military service organization for overseas troops, held its first big rally Saturday at The Church of the Nazarene off Dawsonville Highway.

Organized by church member Becky Pratt, Letters From Home started from a soldier’s request that home folks send them letters and packages from home, according to Bonnie Marshall, whose Army son just returned from Iraq.

"We have over 50 boxes that are being shipped out," she said. "The people who are here are in support of that and they have brought merchandise and have funded our shipping efforts. Our focus on our deployed troops, the ones who are over there in harm's way everyday."

The packages lined the church hallway, ready to be shipped to waiting overseas troops.

In the sanctuary Pratt briefed her audience on the purpose of Letters From Home, urging support for the effort to let troops know they are remembered and cared for by people back home.

Then the group assembled outside for a yellow balloon release and fireworks.
A pick-up was brightly decorated with red, white and blue balloons.

Jim Brackett, a church member, said the church has always supported the armed forces so members fell in behind Pratt's idea.

"We had a young man here who was a Marine and she asked him one day 'what is the best thing we can do that guys overseas want more than anything else,'" Brackett recalled. "He said letters from home."