Local set to deliver Christmas to Utah troops in Iraq

It's barely November, but Denise De Vynck already knows what she wants for Christmas.

She wants every single Utah soldier in every single wartime deployment to get a package from home.

It's no small quest, but when it comes to supporting our troops Denise isn't the kind who leaves it at a bumper sticker and singing along with Toby Keith songs.

Her zeal stems back a couple of years to when a soldier friend was deployed to Iraq and she started sending him letters and packages.

"It's amazing what a difference that can make," she says. "Just to know you're not forgotten and you're appreciated."

Before long, the Orem woman was sending letters and packages to other soldiers who she discovered weren't getting much attention from back home. Whole battalions got on her e-mail list. When it got too much for one woman — even Denise — she started an organization called Letters to Soldiers and set up the Web site letterstosoldiers.org, where she solicits letters from anywhere and everywhere, paper and electronic, and provides a space where people can send a generic e-mail that she guarantees will end up on some soldier's laptop somewhere in the Middle East.

Her latest goal is to make sure Santa Claus makes it to Iraq and Afghanistan for all the Utah troops.

To do that she figures she needs a minimum of $15,000 to cover purchases and shipping and handling.

And to get that she has recruited just about everybody she knows — and doesn't know.

"I'll tell you how it works," she explains, John Madden-style. "This person knows that person who knows that person, and then, boom, boom, boom, that's how it works."

The result is a benefit concert and extravaganza scheduled for

this Wednesday (Nov. 5) at 7 p.m. at Studio 600, a club located in downtown Salt Lake City at 26 E. 600 South.

Entertainers scheduled to perform include the likes of Diamond Rio keyboard player Dan Truman, a St. George native; reigning Miss Utah "G.I. Jill" Stevens; Canadian country music singer Allison Janisse, the One Voice Children's Choir, Angela Winston, the Moleni Bros., Margo Watson, Drew Reese and Jaden Bliss and Lanternlane. Denise said Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has agreed to introduce the star-studded lineup.

Nobody's getting paid or asking to get paid.

"Isn't that great?" exudes Denise. "Everyone in Utah will want to be part of this."