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Lake Worth organization that sends care packages to soldiers will continue its mission

Posted at 5:45 PM, Apr 10, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-10 19:37:00-04

When Army Staff Sergeant Steven Perez is not deployed, he's cutting hair at his Lake Worth barber shop when stateside. He owns Vet 2 Barber Barbershop.

When he was in Afghanistan he said care packages made all the difference: "It was amazing."

Perez remembered, "I was getting packages literally every week and I'm not just talking for me, but I'm talking about 70 to 80 soldiers."

The assembly of care packages almost came to a halt. Forgotten Soldiers Outreachwas told it would have to move out of its donated warehouse by May 1st, and had no place to go.

"We went into panic mode and put out a plea," Forgotten Soldiers Outreach Executive Director Lynelle Chauncey Zelnar said.

This week a good Samaritan answered their prayers. Zelnar said. "And has donated the rent to cover us for 3 years so we are very grateful."

Volunteers are back on track, packing care packages for hundreds of soldiers around the world.

"This has been our mission for 15 years. And the fact is more deployments are continuing and the soldiers are actually coming to us with requests. And it was the last thing I would have wanted to do was the close our doors," Perez said.

"I'm just so thankful that they are able to stay open," he added.