Passion is powerful. When you can use that passion to improve the lives of thousands of young men and women across America, you can accomplish great things.

Longtime Casey customer, Jerilyn Lightfoot, Publication Specialist for Sunnyvale-Cupertino Adult & Community Education (ACE), has always been patriotic, but never so much as in the last six years. On September 11th, 2001 after the terrorists attacked New York City, her son decided to become a Marine.

Jerilyn’s son AJ quickly went through boot camp and was selected to be a scout sniper. Out of 150,000 marines, only 200 are chosen for this highly specialized position.

When AJ joined the Marines, Jerilyn joined an organization called the South Bay Blue Star Moms. Through this organization and a partnership with Casey Printing, Jerilyn produced We Love Our Troops notecards and posters. These products were distributed across the country and sold to raise money for care packages for the troops. The posters were also put up at Starbucks Coffee Shops along with requests for coffee donations.

Using the proceeds from the sale of the posters and notecards as well as the coffee donations, the South Bay Blue Star Moms were able to put together 130 care packages to be sent overseas each including 7 lbs of Starbucks coffee.

At the five year mark of the war, Jerilyn decided that she should purchase something that she had always wanted, a brand new Corvette. At the time AJ was home on leave and helped her secure the deal. The car (pictured below) is very patriotic with its red and white color scheme. “Its always good to have a sniper with you when you are shopping for a car” she said of the experience.