WSPC Helps Care For Troops

MOSES LAKE, WA -- You might say when the chips are down, the Washington State Potato Commission gets the chips moving. Potato chips that is, moving to U.S. troops around the globe, but particularly to service men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The donations of sample bags of potato chips as well pens and writing tablets are made through T.S. Troop Care Package, run by Jan Sass in Pasco, WA. The WSPC sends pallets of the chips for the care packages and also directly to places like Walter Reed Hospital, where troops with serious injuries are being treated.

Additionally, WSPC t-shirts have gone to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., where burn victims, amputees and other trauma patients have their uniforms cut off in triage.

"I had the opportunity of going to the Pentagon last year," says Sass. "We got a personal thank you from Secretary Rumsfield, and we were able to go to Walter Reed and meet with the wounded. And they all knew of Washington potato chips. All of them. It is just a great thing. So Washington state is on the map as far as they're concerned."

Sass says there is such a demand for care packages for the troops that they generally mail every Friday. They are proud of the fact they set the record for the Tri-cities Post Office for the most packages mailed at one time. U.S. Troop Care Package has just completed their annual Christmas mailing, which had to be sent out by the end of October.