VSC honors students, teacher for act of kindness

ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP – Some of the more cherished moments for soldiers and sailors serving abroad involve receiving letters during mail call.
Just more than two decades ago, Benjamin Schwartfigure was a young soldier serving in the Army on a deployment in Afghanistan when he experienced one of those special moments.
On Oct. 3, Schwartfigure took to Facebook to commemorate that moment.
“20 Years Ago Today… A box was put together with love, compassion, and encouragement,” Schwartfigure, executive director of the Veterans Service Commission of Ashtabula County, shared on the social media site. “Five kids from Gateway Elementary in Conneaut picked up their pencils and wrote to a deployed soldier – me. I was 27, newly married, serving in Afghanistan, and facing the uncertainty of war. Then one afternoon, a box arrived. Inside were comfort items and five handwritten letters that lifted my spirit in ways I can’t fully explain. I saved those letters in a binder, never imagining that two decades later, I’d be living and working back home – right where they were written. Today, those kids are about the age I was when I opened that box. And I want them to know: their words mattered.”
“Now, serving at the Ashtabula County Veterans Service Commission, I have the honor of sharing those letters with our community,” the post continued. “I hope they see just how powerful their kindness was – and still is. Thank you, Ryan, Katy, Jillian, Mich and Samara. Thank you to the teachers at Gateway Elementary who encouraged compassion. And thank you to everyone in Ashtabula County who continues to send care packages and letters to deployed service members. You may never see the impact – but I promise you, it’s real. You make a difference. Always have. Always will.”
The post went viral, and Schwartfigure was able to make contact with those five students – Ryan Oatman, Katy Griffey, Mich Paule, Jillian (Jafarace) Freeman and Samara Griggs, and invited them to attend the Veterans Service Commission of Ashtabula County’s holiday party on Dec. 19.
Schwartfigure gifted each of the students and their teacher, Julie Villoni, a challenge coin from his office, a certificate and a copy of the letter they wrote him.
The certificate presented to Villoni read: “It’s a great honor and privilege to present you with this challenge coin in recognition of your dedication to educating and inspiring the next generation through service, compassion and civic responsibility. By encouraging your students to write letters and assemble care packages for deployed service members. You fostered a meaningful connection between our community and those serving far from home. Your leadership helped instill gratitude, empathy and an understanding of sacrifices made by members of our armed forces.”
The students’ certificates read: “It is a great honor and privilege to present you with this challenge coin in recognition of your kindness, thoughtfulness and willingness to support our deployed service members. By taking the time to write letters and help prepare care packages, you showed appreciation, encouragement and respect for those serving our country far from their families and homes. Your words and efforts help remind our service members that they are remembered, valued and supported by their community, and that is truly, truly important.”
The challenge coin presented to Villoni and her students features the official logo of the six branches of military service – Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Space Force – representing those who serve in defense of our nation. The reverse side represents the Ashtabula County Veterans Service Commission. The “A” in the logo stands for Ashtabula. The stars reflect those on our nation’s flag and the wavy the lines symbolize both the stripes of the flag and the waters of Lake Erie, representing unity service and community.
While challenge coins are rooted in military tradition, they are also presented to civilians whose actions support, honor and uplift our service members and veterans.
“This coin is a symbol of our sincere appreciation for your commitment to guiding young people towards service and respect to those serving,” Schwartfigure said.
With Oatman attending via video call, Schwartfigure posed for a picture with Villoni, Griggs, Paule, Griffey and Freeman.
The students’ letters, addressed as “Dear American Soldier,” included small slices of their lives in Conneaut as well as inquiries into what Schwartfigure’s life was like.
Oatman shared that the Cleveland Indians missed the playoffs and that the temperature in Ohio was hot.
“Here in Conneaut, school has been fun,” Oatman wrote. “Almost everybody made new friends. I hope everybody on the squad is safe and healthy.”
Griffey told Schwartfigure that her dad worked as a bartender and janitor at American Legion Cowle Post 151 and that she was in the auxiliary.
“My teacher’s name is Mrs. Villoni,” Griffey wrote. “She is a nice teacher. That’s why I have a lot of fun at school. I also love school because we do lots of fun things Like reading, writing, and once in a while drawing. Well I got to go good luck with the fighting.”
Freeman addressed the beauty of the season.
“Conneaut is beautiful,” Freeman wrote. “The leaves are so pretty. There is a tree behind the school that has lovely red leaves. The funny thing about that tree is only one spot is red, the rest is green. I hope you get back soon.”
The students also expressed gratitude for Schwartfigure’s service to his country.
“Good luck out there,” Paule wrote. “I appreciate you fighting for our country. Thank you.”
Griggs referenced Sept. 11, 2001, mentioning that a lot had happened in the intervening time.
“I wanted to thank you more than anything for fighting for [our] country,” Griggs wrote. “You were so brave when you risked your life in Iraq for us.”
“You soldiers have done so much for us we need to return the favor,” Griggs continued. “Thank you so much!”
Villoni and her students contributed to the care package because a colleague had a son serving.
“I do want to acknowledge Linda Welty, who put the care packages together because she had a son serving in Afghanistan at the same time. She asked us if we wanted to write letters, and we did. I’m so happy it had an impact. Thank you so much for acknowledging us,” she said.
When Schwartfigure received the letters as part of a care package in 2005, he was on a convoy in Bagram, Afghanistan.
“Just about every single day, if I wasn’t on a convoy going somewhere, I was ramping up for one, or I was recovering from one, or I might have been doing a little bit of both,” Schwartfigure said. “It’s an extremely fatiguing task in combat, thousands of miles away from home, where every minute you don’t know what’s happening in the next two seconds.”
The care package also included treats from home.
“I open it up, there’s all these lickies and chewies and snacks in there,” Schwartfigure said. “And, let me tell you, when you’re in Afghanistan or Iraq or somewhere in the world and you get a little taste of home, it means a lot.”
It might seem like a simple gesture, but soldiers prize letters from home, no matter who has written them.
“It’s a taste of home you’re getting,” Schwartfigure said. “In my case, it was five little kids who were acknowledging where I was, what I was doing. You’re talking what, 4,000 miles away, and you’re sitting there getting ready to do the next mission, and the box comes in, it’s a moment where you just kind of take a brief moment to sit and think and remember all the people back home and what you’re doing, what it means. It’s a feel-good thing, and then you get over that moment, and you get back to what you have to do. It’s just a pause.”
The letters meant enough to Schwartfigure at the time that he kept them.
“I was about 26, I think, when the letters came to me, and it’s important to know that when I got those, I put those in a binder, and I kept them and I moved from Afghanistan back to Germany, Germany to Missouri, from Missouri to Georgia,” Schwartfigure said. “I retired out of the Army in 2017. I took all that stuff with me to Maryland before moving back home to Ohio.”
Over the summer, while cleaning out some of his storage, Schwartfigure stumbled upon that binder.
“I started getting everything together, and I found some of my old military stuff, and I’m going through the binder and here are these perfectly preserved letters written by these little kids that, at that time, were going to school with my little brother, Spencer,” Schwartfigure said. “It was really cool, and I noticed that the date on the letters was Oct. 3, 2005, so I brought the letters to work, I set them on my desk, and I kept them there until Oct. 3, 2025, when I put a post on our Facebook page.”
That post has been viewed by more than 80,000 people.
“There were people who shared them, and then their pages blew up,” Schwartfigure said.
The holiday dinner at the Veterans Service Commission was not the first time Schwartfigure connected with the students. He was home in December 2005 and visited the students at school. He brought each of them a challenge coin from Afghanistan and ate lunch with the group.
Schwartfigure was happy to reconnect with the group two decades later.
“(Meeting the students is) so cool,” Schwartfigure said. “I never, in a million years, imagined that I would be able to meet these guys or even see them. I never thought about it again, really, until I saw those letters and realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I still have these things.’ Then, I realized the dates, and I was like, ‘Man, I wonder if these kids are still around here.’ All of a sudden, it got really exciting and then, when it kind of went viral, I was able to connect. We had a zoom call together, and we talked and we coordinated, and they all agreed to be here. And I’m just glad they were all able to attend one way or another.”