Hilary Gushwa, Northrop Grumman Employees and SAG Members Stuff Care Packages
On Saturday, May 16, more than 400 Southern California company employees and about 40 SAG members converted a Northrop Grumman facility that produces U.S. Navy F/A-18 aircraft assemblies during the week into a high-speed human assembly line producing military ``products'' of a different type: two-gallon, zip lock plastic bags containing personal items such as sun screen, packaged body wipes, granola snacks, playing cards, prepaid international phone cards, disposable razors and chewing gum.
In less than six hours, the volunteers stuffed 20,300 care packages -- a USO single day record, and a 25 percent improvement in the single day record of 16,200 care packages set last year by Northrop Grumman.
``Every time we send out one of these packages, I think about where they are going ... and I always hope and pray that the person receiving the package will be able to come home,'' said actress Nancy Sinatra.
Miss California International 2009, Hilary Gushwa shared that “it was truly inspirational to take part in something that can bring a smile to the faces of the men and women who defend our country.”
Other celebrities who participated in the USO event at Northrop Grumman included: Kate Linder (``The Young and the Restless''), Larry Manetti (``Magnum, P.I.''), D.B. Sweeney (``Crash''), and JoAnne Worley (``Rowan & Martin's Laugh In'').
In addition to helping stuff care packages, Northrop Grumman also presented USO with checks totaling more than $50,000: a check for $46,000 from USO fund-raising activities by Northrop Grumman employees to support the Bob Hope USO Chapter at Los Angeles International Airport, and a check for $5,000 from the company's Employee Charity Organization to support the USO care package program.
The USO is a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the troops by providing morale, welfare and recreation-type services to our men and women in uniform. The USO currently operates more than 135 centers worldwide, including ten mobile canteens located in the continental United States and overseas.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.
Hilary Gushwa is Miss California International 2009. She will champion her charitable cause Heart2Heart, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1999 which seeks out and registers bone marrow donors for leukemia patients. As Founder and President of Heart2Heart, Hilary will continue to add as many names as possible to the National Marrow Donor Program. In 2007, Hilary received the Call to Service Award by President George W. Bush, for her dedication to community service over the past nine years. To follow Hilary and her year of service as Miss California International 2009 you can read her blog at http://www.misscaliforniaintl09.blogspot.com.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
