Local effort seeks to provide coffee to troops

Steve Moyer/Daily Mail Josh Spruill, son of 1st Sergeant Stephanie Spruill and grandson of Scott and Charlotte Buerge, holds coffee donated to the troops overseas. The coffeepot where Spruill is stationed is kept going around the clock and the only coffee available is the small packets of expensive German coffee in the base exchange. The Buerges are collecting coffee at the Metz Banking Company and paying to ship it to the troops.

Coffee is often the first thing a person reaches for in the morning, it wakes you up and gets you going. When it isn't there, it's missed. For the troops in the Middle East, coffee is a precious commodity, one that is in short supply.

Stephanie Spruill, the daughter of Charlotte Buerge, is a 1st sergeant serving at a forward operating base assigned to a unit within the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing.

The 386th AEW is the primary aerial hub for Operation Iraqi Freedom and provides airlift support for Operation Enduring Freedom and the Horn of Africa. C-130 Hercules cargo/transport aircraft fly missions rotating soldiers and Marines in and out of their area of responsibility and move cargo to forward operating bases.

Spruill recently sent an e-mail requesting coffee. She will be rotated out in about a month but she wanted to leave her fellow service members with a remembrance.

"As you know we work very long hours over here and there is a coffee pot going 24/7, we don't waste, cold, stale, reheated ... we drink it," Spruill wrote. "However, we have a problem getting coffee over here. The Exchange carries coffee, but only German and in very small packages. So, for the first time ever ... I'm soliciting coffee donations. We ARE NOT picky! We will drink Folgers, Maxwell House, Sam's Choice, Millstone, flavored, unflavored, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Always Save, H.E.B brand, Seattle's Best ... we don't care! We just need coffee!"

The Buerges have a box in the Metz Banking Company lobby where people can leave the coffee they donate. The Buerges will box up the coffee and pay the postage to send it to Kuwait.

"We will box it up in a flat-rate box and send it over there, at least until Scott closes his wallet," Charlotte Buerge joked.

Buerge said that while the brand of coffee isn't important, the packaging is.

"It's better to use the vacuum-packed 'brick' coffee," Buerge said. "It fits in the box better."