What you don't read in the news... Navy Petty Officer Mike Monsoor
PO2 (EOD2) Mike Monsoor, a Navy EOD Technician, was awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for jumping on a grenade in Iraq,
giving his life to save his fellow SEALs.

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Melrose Beacon - Melrose, MN

An 11-year-old fifth grader sat in a hospital waiting room waiting for her mother to come out of surgery. She paged through a magazine, and an article caught her interest.

The story was about how many members of the United States military serving in foreign nations sometimes don’t have the grooming supplies they need, or letters from home, or even clean clothing if they are wounded and released from the hospital with only their bloody clothes to wear.

Serious reading for a little girl worried about her mother.

From that chance article, Chelsy found a mission. She would, she decided, adopt two soldiers and send them care packages. She obtained the names and addresses of two soldiers from the contact listed in the magazine article, and used her own money to send a package to Robert at Camp Fuluga in Iraq, and Sean in Afghanistan.

Not satisfied that her work was done, Chelsy expanded on her idea. Maybe other people would be interested in donating items and money to help make the lives of military personnel better.

A couple months ago she began soliciting items from friends, relatives, and yes, businesses for her project, which now had a name: Chelsy’s Heroes.

Cash donated is used for postage to send the items to the military.

She expanded her quest from Sauk Centre, where she will attend sixth grade at Holy Family School this fall, to Melrose, Alexandria, Long Prairie, and in the future, St. Cloud.

Thursday, Aug. 19 found Chelsy in Melrose for her cause. The next day she set up a table at a Sauk Centre grocery store, and together with her mother, Julie Peterson, and her 10-year-old friend, Tosha Quade, they collected items for Chelsy’s Heroes care packages.

Now her goal is to collect enough items, and money to ship them, to send to all 87 of the military serving overseas from Charlie Company, which is based out of Sauk Centre.

She doesn’t want to leave anyone out, so that they will be sad at not getting a package.

Once the items are collected and packaged, the boxes will be brought to the Sauk Centre Armory for addressing and mailing. Privacy laws and security prohibit Chelsy from obtaining the names and addresses of those serving.

Those wishing to help with Chelsy’s Heroes may contact Chelsy Peterson or her mother, Julie, at 320-223-2527.