Airman’s family gives Our Redeemer students pizza party

Girls’ letters reached Air Force soldier in Texas

By Vicky Wedig

Editor

Jennifer LaFace recalls releasing balloons for soldiers when she was in elementary school and, as a child, wondered if anyone ever got her message.

So, when her daughter – a 21-year-old airman from Pittsburg – received letters from two Our Redeemer Lutheran School students, LaFace wanted to make sure the elementary schoolers knew their letters were received and appreciated.

“Our family is big about paying it forward,” said the Pennsylvania woman, who surprised the students with a pizza party Thursday at school.

The students – fourth-grader Kali Ginner and sixth-grader Hannah Hernandez – wrote the letters last school year when they were in Rebecca Pinniman’s third-grade class and Kaitlyn Grott’s fifth-grade class. Olivia LaFace received the letters this year while in technical school at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Jennifer LaFace said she was touched when she saw her daughter’s enjoyment and heard her getting choked up as she read the students’ letters over the phone Sept. 6.

“I loved hearing the joy in her voice while she read them to me,” LaFace said. “It was such a beautiful gift from her and the students.”

She said in the “cute little letters,” the students told Olivia a little bit about themselves and said they were praying for her. One called her a soldier, the other referred to her as “hero.”

“It stopped me in my tracks,” Jennifer LaFace said.

Penniman said the entire student body at Our Redeemer – nearly 140 students – drew pictures or wrote letters to servicemen and women last year through the American Legion, which sent the letters off to the military.

She said the school has done similar projects in the past and gotten thank-you emails or postcards from recipients but never the amount of direct contact from such a distance as they’ve gotten from LaFace.

“This is definitely a first,” Penniman said. “This mom – you can just tell how much it touched her. I have never had a mom who has been this outgoing and caring.”

She said she told LaFace giving the kids a pizza party was not necessary but LaFace insisted. Olivia LaFace also plans to write personal letters to Ginner and Hernandez, she said.