SockBrigade aids troops

This a warm and fuzzy story. Literally.

For a Browns Valley woman with her own alpaca farm, it's about putting money where her mouth is in supporting soldiers. And for U.S. soldiers serving far from home, it's about keeping their tootsies toasty during long winters in Kabul or Baghdad.

"I don't want warm feet to be a luxury," explained Jennifer Powers as she fed a pack of hungry alpacas Monday afternoon. "If I wasn't confident about making my goals, I wouldn't make them to begin with."

Powers, 42, is president of the BentStar Project, a small nonprofit group that works on military-related causes. Lately, the focus has been feet.

Specifically, Powers is trying to raise $10,000 by Christmas — she's about $4,000 short now — to send three pairs of alpaca socks each, at $30 per person, to deployed soldiers. She calls the effort The SockBrigade.

Her venture into footwear for foot soldiers was not by design, Powers said. Neither was starting BentStar, but along the way of finding something to do after she gave up a career, and two world records, in skydiving a decade ago, it just happened.

As a skydiving instructor, one of her students was Pat Scannon, a Bay Area doctor who for the last 15 years has spent a few weeks every year researching and diving off the island of Palau in the Pacific Ocean. With his own resources, Scannon looked for the wrecks of U.S. military planes from World War II and the remains of soldiers lost with them.

As a result, Powers and other friends gathered at a restaurant to form a nonprofit group to support Scannon's activities. When she went to the restroom, she returned to discover she'd been made president.

"I got drug into it kicking and screaming," Powers said with a wide grin carrying just a hint of weariness. "But I said, 'If we have a charity, we have to do something with it.'"

Some of Scannon's work had a direct connection locally, after he and some volunteers, including Powers, found the wreck of a plane flown by Robert Stinson, a U.S. Army Air Corps member who'd been missing in action for more than 60 years.

In Yuba City, Stinson's brother, Richard Stinson, said he was impressed by BentStar's dedication.

"We were really excited that they found him," said Stinson, who later oversaw his brother's formal burial in Riverside. "Their only satisfaction is in finding someone."

That was enough to occupy Powers' time for awhile, along with the alpaca farm. Eventually, the two interests came together.

Powers said she heard of a fellow alpaca rancher in Oregon whose son had been deployed to Iraq, and who wanted alpaca socks more than anything else from home. A reputation of the socks' durability and insulation properties spread among soldiers, and soon Powers said she had a list of sock requests — and a new cause to support.

So far, she said, she's sent more than 7,000 pairs of socks to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. As well, wool from her own alpacas is sold to companies that make the socks, though she only makes enough money on wool to keep her farm going, she said.

Eventually, she'd like to send socks to every deployed soldier, she said.

Marines Maj. Derek Abbey, 36, was able to get foot coverings for 100 guys in his company after he met Powers.

"Even my Special Ops unit, when we go onto deployment, I'll spend money on gear that's important to me," said Abbey, now studying at the University of San Diego. "These socks — that's just something else you don't have to spend your own money on."

With combat operations planned to wind down in the next few years in Iraq and Afghanistan, Powers said, the SockBrigade may not last much longer. That's OK, she said.

"All the things I've been doing have been tangential in how they come to me," she said. "Something else will find us."