Mainers use yellow ribbon magnets to show support for soldiersWATERVILLE, Maine -- Some Maine motorists are showing their support for troops deployed in Iraq by sticking magnetic yellow ribbons, designed by a Skowhegan grocer, to their cars and trucks.
Louann Barnes, owner of the West Front Market in Skowhegan, designed her ribbon magnet through a company in North Carolina. She sold 550 of the magnetic ribbons in just two weeks and has ordered more. Barnes, whose son Sgt. Daniel Goodwin serves with the 133rd Engineer Battalion in Iraq, said she plans to use money from sales of the ribbons to ship items to soldiers in Goodwin's battalion. With other fund-raisers, she has come up with more than $10,000 to buy supplies for the soldiers, she said. Jo Hersom of Whitefield, mother of a 20-year-old soldier in Iraq, leads a group of relatives and friends of the Maine 133rd from the Augusta area who are selling the ribbon magnets. "People stop me at the gas station and ask, 'Where did you get the magnet?' They're everywhere now," Hersom said. "We're doing something in a positive mode instead of a fear and crisis mode." A company called Magnet America in Bennett, N.C., produces the "Support Our Troops" ribbons and has sold as many as 100,000 of them a week. Dwain Gullion, one of Magnet America's partners, said his company's first large customer started a grassroots volunteer organization called Operation We Care. It orders 5,000 to 10,000 magnets at a time and uses the funds to send care packages to soldiers.
"Everything is manufactured in the U.S. just to keep it patriotic," said Gullion, adding that the enterprise employs 40 to 60 people. Daniel Brown is the company's other partner. © Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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