I talked to Will Barclay, Assemblyman for the 124th District, two Fridays ago after receiving notice of an item drive he is once again involved in. The Ladies Auxiliary and Pulaski VFW Post 7289 are collecting items to send to troops in time for Christmas.
The only local drop-off site indicated on the press release was Camillus, so just to be sure I asked if there were any others. If there were, I told him over the phone, I could potentially have the article published in multiple Eagle Newspapers to help spread the word.
Barclay’s response surprised me: “No, just Camillus. But that’s a great idea.”
Thanking me for the suggestion, he said he would call up area town halls and see if they’d be willing to have a box set up on site for collection. Adding a few boxes would be easy enough, he said, and could make a big difference in the number of donations coming in.
Less than an hour later I received an e-mail from his office saying that boxes had been added to town halls in Lysander, Elbridge, Skaneateles and Marcellus.
I commend the assemblyman for taking my question as a suggestion and taking quick action to improve an already productive effort to support the troops. He could have easily stopped at, “No, just Camillus.”
Ned Campbell is the editor of Eagle Newspaper’s Eagle Observer, which covers Camillus, Jordan, Elbridge, Solvay and Marcellus.