Coupon-Clipping Grannies Gather to Support the Troops- No, SERIOUSLY!
GREENBELT, Md. - Some are frail, their bodies riddled with arthritis. Others are confined to walkers or wheelchairs.
Spread out across the country is a small army of old ladies determined to do their part in the war on terror. Their weapons of choice: scissors and coupons.
They cut out a couple hundred each day, a few thousand a week, and send them to military families in the Middle East and elsewhere overseas, who redeem them at commissaries. It may not seem like much, the ladies say, but every little bit counts.
In a new era of American warfare, when people are told to support the war effort by boosting the economy by shopping or simply by going on with their lives, these women think more should be done. They are from an older generation that remembers the days of war bonds and rations, and they are trying again to make a difference, one coupon at a time.
Lila Sclawy, 87, started clipping shortly after her husband, a veteran, died in 2001 of pancreatic cancer. Four weeks later, she turned on the news to see the World Trade Center crashing down.
As the country grieved, she was looking for a way to overcome her grief. That’s when she heard about the coupon ladies in Greenbelt.
They meet every Tuesday in the musty upstairs room at American Legion Post #136. Each woman brings a heaping bundle of newspaper scraps gathered from their neighbors. For hours, they comb through the coupons, sorting them by denomination — 25 cents off, 30 cents, a dollar — so they can keep track of how much they’re sending in each box