Gift to soldier spurs acts of kindness at PCHS

GUILFORD – A Piscataquis Community High School student planted a seed of kindness last month that is now sprouting elsewhere.

Brian Davis, a PCHS junior, raised $95 on his own to purchase phone cards last month for local servicemen and women serving in Iraq. He said he wanted to thank the soldiers for the sacrifices they made for their country and to show them that he cared.

While he has been thanked by some of the parents of those soldiers who received the cards, it was a letter from a soldier stationed at West Point, N.Y., that tugged at his heart and those of his classmates.

That letter from Spc. Joshua D. Colson, formerly of Dover-Foxcroft, prompted students and faculty alike to build on Davis’ project by donating 20 gift boxes this week to local soldiers deployed in Iraq.

“Because of reading his [Colson’s] letter, we thought that they appreciated it so much that we wanted to do more,” Jody DiFrederico, teacher and adviser, said Wednesday.

After reading about Davis’ gift in the Bangor Daily News, Colson fired off a letter to school administrators to give his thanks. While he was not a recipient of one of the phone cards, he noted that a good friend of his, Jason Sands of Dover-Foxcroft, had been.

“[Davis] is the type of individual who makes a young soldier like me feel proud to serve for,” Colson wrote. The article about his gift made Colson smile and made him feel “really proud” to be a soldier in the military forces from the central Maine area, he said, in his letter.

Colson asked PCHS administrators to tell Davis: “Thank you so much … it really means a lot not only to me, but to all servicemen and women around the world.”