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Public commenter urges Decatur County to make care-package drive an annual July tradition
Summary
A Decatur County resident asked the council to endorse a volunteer effort to pack and ship care packages to service members and suggested a county proclamation tied to July observances; veterans staff cautioned the council to protect servicemembers' dependents' privacy when collecting names or addresses.
A resident, Cleo, asked the Decatur County Council to endorse a volunteer program to assemble care packages for service members and to consider making the effort an annual county tradition tied to July observances.
"We will be packing the boxes on Thursday, starting at 10 in the morning at the back room of the branch," Cleo told the council, and asked for volunteers to help set up an assembly line, print address tags and carry packages to the post office. She also asked the council to consider a formal proclamation to make the effort a recurring county event.
Council members discussed whether the commissioners or the council would draw the proclamation; staff member Christie said she would check on who should prepare it and asked Cleo to provide the dates the group wanted to observe. The council suggested coordinating the effort with Armed Forces Month in July.
Following public comment, a veterans-office representative advised caution about publishing servicemembers' names and addresses. Drawing on personal experience, the presenter warned that distributing personal contact information can expose dependents to unwanted solicitations and other harms and suggested using a single collection point to receive care packages and then redistribute them to deployed personnel.
The council did not take formal action at the meeting on the request for a proclamation but asked staff to research the process and report back at a future meeting.
