Denton postal employees know how to grant special wishes.

In the past, they have collected items for charities across town such as United Way. They have also gathered funds to support a Presbyterian church and even helped a needy person or two by giving them toys and household items. Most of their deeds go unreported, and postal employees like it that way.

“They do it year-round,” said Marvin Ruyle, an employee at the post office located on Loop 288 near the Golden Triangle Mall.

For their latest deed, they helped Tara Sheffield’s fourth-grade class at Castle Hills Elementary send care packages to troops in Afghanistan. Postal employees visited the school in Lewisville, collected the students’ items, packaged them and sent them to the soldiers overseas. Postal employees spent $265 to ensure the packages arrived to about 44 soldiers in Afghanistan before Christmas.

“There were about 100 that contributed … city carriers, rural route and clerk workers,” Ruyle said about the number of employees that volunteered to help the class with the care packages.

A day before Thanksgiving, Denton Postmaster Les Phipps received a call from Sheffield asking for what she thought was their free military shipping service.

“We give free Priority [Mail] boxes, but you still have to pay for the Priority shipping,” Phipps said, clarifying the confusion.

Understanding her dismay, Phipps contacted the president of the postal workers union to see what they could do. Sheffield was invited to give a speech to employees in the union.

“There is a nice of bunch of good people over there,” Sheffield said. “When I came to talk to them, they made me laugh. I am used to talking to the kids, but I got nervous.”

She said she told the employees that she was not used to speaking to adults.

To that, one of the postal employees replied, “This is like talking to kids!”

Sheffield, 36, an inclusion teacher at Castle Hills, said the project began when she proposed that her students write letters to troops. She told them that she often wrote to her brother, Capt. Terrence Green, 39, who has been serving in Afghanistan since May.

About 100 students from four fourth-grade classes sent letters and items to Green’s unit.

“They love ramen noodles, Spam, Vienna sausages. They mostly got non-perishable items,” Sheffield said of the items the students collected around Veteran’s Day.

Ruyle, a postal employee for the past 24 years and president of Branch 1367 of the Texas State Association of Letter Carriers, said he has seen a lot of charitable works take place in his job.

Just last Thursday, after postal employees learned that a mother with four young children in Krugerville lost her home in a fire, the employees gathered toys and household items and managed to raise $1,000.

“When I took the money and gave it to them,” Ruyle said, “well, you should have seen their faces.”

Ruyle said he likes his work and the 460 customers he serves on his route as a letter carrier.

“We are blessed to have the work that we have, so why not give to others?” he said.

For their work, postal employees received thank you notes and a banner with the students’ signatures.

“Thanks to you, the troops can use more supplies to bare (sic) to stay alive,” one fourth-grader wrote. “We know it was a lot of work, but you pulled it off.”

Another student said he was grateful for their help because it would have been expensive for them to send the supplies to the soldiers.

Phipps verified that the troops received their 21 flat-rate boxes on Dec. 16.

Sheffield said she also wanted to do something special for troops in Afghanistan because people often forget about the “other war.”

“We are involved in more than one war and the emphasis is always on Iraq,” she said.

When postal employees are not helping others in the community, they provide support and assistance to their co-workers. Ruyle said that when someone is having a difficult time, they help them out and they don’t seek any recognition for their work.

“We don’t pat ourselves on the back,” he said. “We are just doing our job.”

KARINA RAMÍREZ can be reached at 940-566-6878. Her e-mail address is kramirez@dentonrc.com.

On the web

Find out what U.S. troops need overseas by visiting the following Web sites:

United Service Organizations: www.uso.org/donate

Give 2 The Troops: www.give2thetroops.com

Operation Gratitude: www.opgratitude.com/wishlist.php