Sending care packages to soldiers overseas and praying for the safety of relatives in combat isn't new to Dorothy Benyacko Carbisiero, of New Stanton.
As a teen, she mailed homemade cookies to her two brothers, who served during the Vietnam War. Now the men and women she calls her "children " -- members of the U.S. Army Reserve's 14th Quartermaster Detachment, based in Hempfield Township -- profit from her attention.
Benyacko Carbisiero is the reserve unit's administrator. Her job is to work closely with the 60 soldiers assigned to the unit, and she treats them all like family.
And as the unit's Family Readiness Group leader, she helps their families meet the challenges of military life. Group members meet monthly at the unit's base in Carbon to share practical and emotional support.
The group doesn't function only when the reservists are activated, Benyacko Carbisiero said. She and the group's volunteers work throughout the year, providing monthly morale boosters to the soldiers and their families.
They also rely on local businesses. In recent years more than four dozen have donated goods for "care packages" or their services for special events. And Westmoreland County schoolchildren routinely send the unit handmade cards, letters and artwork to be forwarded to troops on active duty.
"The soldiers will tell you this is the best family support group they have seen," said Staff Sgt. Antonio Bonnette, 24, a South Carolina native who has been with the local detachment for three years.
He is one of 48 members of the 14th Quartermaster unit who will leave this weekend for a training stint in Fort Dix, N.J. The group then anticipates an 18-month deployment in the Middle East, where it will purify water.
Bonnette, a supply sergeant, said it didn't take him long to realize that Benyacko Carbisiero and others he has met while living in Greensburg support the unit's soldiers.
"They care a lot more about the troops here," he said.
Bonnette also has come to love some of southwestern Pennsylvania's signature dishes. Benyacko Carbisiero makes him haluski, a cabbage and noodle concoction smothered in butter, and refers to him as her "adopted son."
Sgt. Nadia Ramos, who transferred to the 14th Quartermaster less than two months ago, sees Benyacko Carbisiero as a mother figure and says she is awed by local support for the military.
Ramos was born in Guyana, on South America's northeastern coast, and moved to New York when she was 13. She has served in the U.S. military for 41/2 years and the reserves for nearly two years.
"This place is awesome. It's the best family readiness program I've ever seen," said Ramos, a personnel administrator specialist. "They're like one big family here."
"Yeah, they're all my children," Benyacko Carbisiero said, giving her a hug.
Both Ramos and Bonnette said southwestern Pennsylvania neighborhoods display more yellow ribbons and American flags than anywhere else they've seen, and more vehicles sporting magnetic ribbons that express support for troops.
Benyacko Carbisiero is asking local residents to mark the Thanksgiving holiday by taking a moment to be "thankful for freedom," and by putting up even more flags and ribbons.
She said one local discount store that usually stocks yellow ribbon has completely run out. The 14th Quartermaster is looking for donations of yellow ribbons to be placed on telephone poles along the highway soldiers will take as they depart for active duty later this week.
Jo Hartzell, a Hempfield Township mother of seven, will be saying goodbye to her son, Spc. George Hartzell Jr.
"We're going to need to give more support to families now after the deployment," said Jo Hartzell, who has volunteered with the Family Readiness Group since 2000. "I get the satisfaction of working with them, helping them."
That sentiment drives Benyacko Carbisiero, too.
"For me," she said, "it's all about taking care of soldiers and their families."
To donate goods or services to the 14th Quartermaster unit's Family Readiness Group, call Dorothy Benyacko Carbisiero at 724-834-1235, Ext. 1005.
