Taking Care of the Troops

FAITH Military Support Group Continues Its Mission

In June 2006, about a dozen people with at least 1 thing in common gathered at a Livingston physical therapy office—all of them had children or grandchildren deploying for military duty.

“Together, we had about 16 kids who had all joined different branches of the armed services and were about to deploy,” says Bea Ellis, 1 of the founders of the Families and Individuals Thanking Heroes, or FAITH Military Support Group. “And this was just in our little group in our little community.”

Now, nearly 20 years later, FAITH has grown into a nonprofit organization that serves thousands of members of the armed forces every year by sending Christmas cards and overflowing care packages full of food, toiletries, and more. “It just kept growing,” says Dan Ellis, Bea’s husband and another 1 of FAITH’s co-founders. “We never thought we’d still be doing it this far down the road, but there’s still a need.”

Early Days

Dan and Bea, who own and operate Livingston Physical Therapy, helped start the group when 1 of their sons was preparing to deploy to Iraq with the Marines. Like so many other young people at the time, he was inspired to join after watching the events of September 11 unfold on a TV in his classroom.

The Ellises knew they couldn’t be the only ones in town watching someone they love deploy. And if there were others, wouldn’t they also be nervous and worried? If they banded together, they could form a community they could turn to for encouragement. With that thought in mind, they joined with Suanne and the late Bill Wilson to found FAITH.

“It was originally intended as a support group for the adults who had loved ones in the military,” Dan says. “The idea was that if something happened to 1 of our kids or 1 of the families needed something we had a support group ready to go.”

The group quickly decided to start sending care packages to their children. Pooling resources, they gathered various items— candy and letters, mostly. They paid for the postage out of their own pockets.

“We said we’d do that every month,” Bea says. “We’d do a little potluck and bring everybody up to date. By August and September, others had heard and asked us to send boxes to their kids. In December 2006, we packaged and shipped about 40 boxes.”

God's Hand

Dan and Bea no longer have children in the armed forces, but they continue the mission of FAITH. As more people found out about the group’s efforts, the list of care package recipients grew. Now, they send 125 packages each month with everything from protein-rich foods and ready-to-eat meals to toilet paper and various hygiene products.

1 service member told them the boxes had been more than a comfort when his platoon was the last group left at a Forward Operating Base in Iraq that was closing. “They had gotten removed from the resupply list, and they were running out of food,” Dan says. “They had plenty of water, but they told us they were getting by on the stuff we sent.

“It was 1 of those situations where God’s hand was in it,” he adds. “We’d sent him a little extra stuff, and this man fed his 13 guys out of those boxes.”

Sending Love

About 85% to 90% of the boxes go overseas. The rest of the packages go to service members serving domestically, including those in hospitals. “You’d be surprised how many service members in hospitals don’t have basic things like toothbrushes,” Bea says. “Their families aren’t always with them, because military hospitals are in specific locations.”

For Christmas, the group sends out about 350 care packages. Each person on the list gets at least 3 or 4 so they can share with their friends.

FAITH also organizes the shipment of about 10,000 Christmas cards every year. “Each person on the list gets at least 40-50 hand-signed cards in their boxes to distribute to other military personnel,” Dan says. “We also send blank ones, so they can send their families and friends Christmas cards.”

They ask churches and school children to sign them, and they take cards to events all over town for signatures and well-wishes. “It’s a communitywide effort,” Bea says.

Her favorite story, however, is from a local Navy Seal who returned to a base in Iraq after spending nearly a month on missions outside the base. “He said he was walking through the mess hall and saw all our boxes out and found a letter from us,” Bea says. “He said he was so moved he got up on the table and said, ‘This stuff right here is from my people— my people in East Texas!’”