Carole LaRow remembers the day clearly. "I was sitting in the doctor's office when I noticed a woman crying," she said.

She slipped into a nearby seat and asked what was wrong. Between sobs, the woman said her husband had just shipped out for a seven-month mission on an aircraft carrier.

"That's when I understood what it means when these sailors leave home - being separated from their families and the emotional toll that takes," said LaRow, a member of the Niskayuna Teachers Association in Schenectady County.

Cookie airlift

The meeting inspired her to start a pen-pal program. Twenty years later, her middle school students are still exchanging letters with sailors in the U.S. Navy. Through the program, LaRow's students have orchestrated a 2,000-box cookie airlift, traveled to New York City to visit aircraft carriers, sung "Anchors Aweigh" on ship decks and hosted a contingent of sailors who dropped onto their playground in a helicopter. Recently, the Navy Pen Pal Project received a Smithsonian Laureate Award and will be archived in the Smithsonian Institution.

LaRow, said Niskayuna TA President Sue Penny, "does things because they're the right thing to do."

Since the program began in 1982, about 2,400 students and 21,000 sailors on 180 different ships have corresponded. The kids bring a bit of the U.S.A. to sailors by writing letters, sending newspaper articles, sports information, candy and cookies.

The sailors, said LaRow, "love hearing how a student put a hamster in his mom's slipper or how a raccoon got into someone's basement. I encourage the kids to be funny and to share their interests and hobbies."

In addition to lessons in civics and patriotism, the project teaches current events, geography and history. Class discussions lead to a better understanding of "what a democracy is, what our military does, what's going on in the Middle East," LaRow said.

Although LaRow contacts crews through the commander-in-chief of the Atlantic fleet, she recommends reaching out to students' relatives to launch a pen pal project. "Ask students if they know someone in the military they'd like to write to," she said. "We write to Navy sailors, but I'm certain any military branch would be thrilled to receive letters from home."

The project draws families closer as students become aware of the sacrifices military personnel make, she said.

"I've gotten wonderful phone calls from parents who say this program has helped their children forge new relationships with grandparents who served in Korea or World War II."

- Kara E. Smith