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Subscribe to RSSWhen 11-year-old Savannah Maddison Ogden’s friend’s father was deployed to Afghanistan, she began a letter-writing campaign to cheer up soldiers. A year later, Ogden has inspired dozens of other kids to join her, sending thousands of letters to battalions stationed half a world away. NBC’s Kerry Sanders reports.
To bring holiday cheer to U.S. military missing their families while deployed in Afghanistan, an 11-year-old Florida girl has mobilized an army of her own.
Savannah Maddison Ogden of Weston, Fla., is the creator of “Savannah’s Soldiers,’’ a letter-writing campaign that has resulted in children sending an estimated 25,000 letters to soldiers serving in Afghanistan, including over 10,000 during this holiday season.
The campaign began a year ago with a simple gesture: Savannah wanted to cheer up good friend Wilson Schaper after his father, Lt. Col. William S. Clete Schaper, was deployed to Afghanistan in January.
“I was kind of like, ‘Wow, what?’ I couldn’t imagine my parents going away for that long,’’ Savannah told NBC’s Kerry Sanders. “That would just crush me.’’
Savannah initially wrote a song for Wilson to cheer him up, but then decided to take it a big step further. She hoped to enlist enough other children to write letters to all 700 members that were deployed with Wilson’s father.
“I said, ‘Wilson, we need to do something more than this, is there anything we can do?'’’ she recalled. “We came up with ‘Savannah’s Soldiers.’’’
“I thought, ‘Oh how are we going to send 700 letters to Afghanistan?’’ Savannah’s mother, Monique Ogden, told NBC News. “She would get kids over, and they would start writing letters. It would be maybe 30-40 letters they would come up with in a week. I thought, ‘We’ve got a long way to go.'’’
To help achieve their goal, Ogden began speaking at local schools and Miami Marlins games. “The little kids write the cutest letters because they’re not the best spellers,’’ she said. “They’ll say ‘crunchy’ instead of ‘country.’ The kids really put their hearts into these letters.’’
The missives began to pour in, and Ogden and her family sorted through them and then mailed them to Afghanistan.
“When you get a letter from a little kid that is telling you ‘good job’ and ‘thank you,’ you can’t explain it,’’ Capt. Bryan Durham, an engineer plans officer for the 841st Engineer Battalion, told NBC News.
“It helps them just get through the day and the tough situations that they’re dealing with in Afghanistan,’’ Janette Chandler, a support assistant with the U.S. Army’s Family Readiness Group, told NBC News.
The scores of children now writing letters enabled Savannah to far exceed her goal of cheering up the group deployed with Lt. Col. Schaper. Letter recipients now also include a naval unit and multiple army battalions, and many of them have posted their gratitude on Savannah’s Facebook page.
“The best is, they’re always smiling,’’ Savannah said. “They’re always holding up the letters with a smile on their face.’’
Two weeks ago, one of the regular recipients of the letters gave his family a special surprise: Wilson’s father made it home safely from Afghanistan for the holidays and thanked Savannah for all her hard work.
“Whenever Savannah’s letters boxes arrived, we would distribute them out,’’ Lt. Col. Schaper said. “Every time you were handing them out, there was always a huge smile, and a heartfelt thank you.’’
The letters helped Wilson feel close to his father while he was thousands of miles away before the two were reunited just in time for Christmas.
“It’s the best Christmas gift ever,’’ Wilson told NBC News.
"It's really amazing to see that we're doing a great thing. It's working," said Savannah Maddison Ogden, 11, who has sent thousands of letters to the military serving in Afghanistan. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.
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the vet don L hey its not so far fetched. it has happened in my area. You guys aint all pure either...
weirder things have happened. Crazier stuff has happened. Wake up!
Modern Day - Betty Boop! Wow, history really does repeat itself! {:-)}
Seventy-some posts on a little girl doing good for the troops. Five thousand plus posts for the latest mad man burning and killing in NY. What a wonderful world we live in. Thank a reporter for shaping your minds . . .
I'm sorry- I hate to be such a pessimist out of such a well-intended idea...but, am I the only one who sees the risk in this gesture? Fine- I'll address the elephant in the room: What about the RISK and altogether LIKELINESS that these correspondant relationships might lead to a high risk of pedophilia among our armed services?! I didn't notice whether or not that correspondings are recicprocated or just a one-time thoughtful note, but I can easily see the probability of actual emotional relationships spawning out of this. The pure nature of it is that you have teen girls (mostly, I presume) writing to (mostly) men who are in fragile emotional, physical, and mental states of mind...all a perfect recipe for a vulnerable, lonely person to start to feel attachment beyond a simple gesture, especially if there is continuing correspondence between the two parties. I don't speak purely hypothetically, either. I've heard of real life stories where people in similarly alienated sitautions (i.e. incarcerated men/women) develop long term and even romantic relationships with penpals that they've never met before, because of the emotional void that these companionships tend to fill. Like I said, i'm not trying to be doubtful, just stating the obvious....
It isn't obvious to me. I think most people would be decent about it.
Well, Buffaloes, Lord knows I'd like to think/hope you're right. Mind you, this story is just a Hallmark (no pun intended) media version of the reality of this situation. The reality has the capability to breed far more than a cookie-cutter reality. Nonetheless, peace be to our troops...
Wow she is so mature and well spoken for her age. I know adults that can't speak or express their ideas as clearly. Good for her.
I have a letter today that I received when I was in the Gulf War. It put a smile on my face then and it puts a smile on my face today. Thank you Savannah, Maddison Family, and all involved in the letter campaign. What a great story and a wonderful thing to do! I know our Vets are so glad to get those letters!
This thoughtful and compassionate young girl has done more than Obama or Bush ever has to let our troops know they haven't been forgotten. When they get letters from the little ones, it has bring at least a smile or a few tears.
A 11-years-old girl looks like a teenage, and she has very nice make-up. How can she, just 11-years-old girl, have that kind of make-up?
Hope that she continues to write to our soldiers, who fight for the Human Rights and our constitutional rights.
Thanks for the good job.
I don't like the photo and video where she is posed like a 1940s pin-up girl when she is on the floor. I don't think she actually is wearing any makeup, I think she is just naturally pretty and has the best intentions. The adults who posted the video and photos for this story should have made her look more like the kid that she is.
Good on her. Now if she can persuade our Politicians to keep their word on providing the Medical care they promised to Veteran Retirees and their wives instead of cutting them even more that would be way better then a slap on the back.
A slap on the back is nice but it doesn't pay the bills.
We kept our word...
http://mrgrg-ms.org/brief00.html
Wanna make a soldier smile? Send and keep him home. Oh sorry, they're there to insure world peace. Tell that one to the veteransl.
Without the Leadership of our nation, and use of it's Armed Forces, there would be no semblance of Peace at all in this world.I am PROUD to be a Marine Corps Veteran, Proud to have served my Countries bid, and would not hesitate to do it again if they would let me. And it was/is not my place to question or complain, just perform my job I was trained to do, regardless of who is in the White House, or their reason and justification. I wish we had had wonderful children and adults like this when I was in and serving overseas.
"Send and keep him home."
Where did you think you were going when mom packed your bag?
This is a wonderful storyof how smart, intelligent, and wonderful children are, and can be!!I wonder if she and her friends/organization would be willing to expand, and allow us adults to join in. Especially us fellow Veterans looking to be pen-pals with all our troops on active duty in foreign lands.
Steven Kelly- go to www.adoptaussoldier.org.
I have a letter that I recieved from a young man many many years ago while deployed. It made me laugh you see the young man was very upset because "my mom groundeded me from the tv because i woke up my dumb baby sister, she sleeps all the time anyways so whats the big deal." Will i ever get rid of that letter ? No. it was the bright spot in the darkness and lonelyness of being far away from home and family.
What an amazing young lady! She has done something truly special for complete strangers that put their lives on the line for us. I can't imagine what those soldiers think and their reaction when they receive those letters from young kids. Keep up the amazing work!
May God bless you, your family, and ALL of those that have received your letters, and your friends' letters. You have done an admirable thing. Thank you Savannah, from an old veteran.
Thank You God for this child. She Is a blessing to me.
As a mom to a deployed Marine, this little girl is special. It does wonders when our men and women receive letters from back here in the states, I wish we had more Savannah's! You keep it up, you are a special young lady!
Yes, this young American has done something that we should all admire and it will definitely make a difference for enlisted troops overseas that cannot enjoy the holidays with their families and friends.
I'm the proud father of an Airman who is stateside right now, but will again be deployed overseas and in harms way all too soon, his 3 year old son and his wife (expecting in 4 months) will have to keep their spirits up and pray for his safe return.
I'm proud that he chose to serve our country, and enlisted while the U.S. was at war, and recieved a Congressionally Issued Degree in Foreign Language for his accomplishments in basic training, but that is not what made me want to leave this post....
At his graduation from basic training and whenever he was off base he was required to wear his U.S.A.F. formal attire. Most commended him on his service to our country, many in gratitude that conflicts abroad did not daunt him, however, some sought to discredit our country through him, some actually asking him how could he possibly be proud to represent the US in activity that we should all be ashamed of.
Calmly he said: "I do not share your opinion about this country, but I will put my life on the line to make sure that you can have it."
Thanks to those of you leaving the types of posts that make me so proud of my son.