Pens for Troops

One of the missions of the Woodworkers of Central New York is to contribute to the community in which we live, practice our craft, and enjoy. Supporting the men and women who protect us through their service in the United States Military is one of our worthy projects. How do we do it? By participating in the annual Turn for Troops program sponsored by Woodcraft.
There is no Woodcraft store in Syracuse so individual members turn groups of pens in their shops. Sometimes the club sponsors a weekend workshop for members to turn their pens in a group setting. Woodcraft generously donates the components and for some time also the wood. The club now provides members with blanks. Woodcraft sends materials to our club coordinators, Larry Prunotto and Ted Kleege. Larry & Ted package and distribute the materials for members spread out throughout Central New York and then receive the complete pens for repackaging and shipping to Woodcraft. Some members create and donate pens from kits and wood they own.
Participation in this program by our members over the years has grown since we started in 2014 donating 170 completed pens. Even during Covid, members generated over 300 pens each year.
In 2021, we allocated 10 of the pen kits provided by Woodcraft to a new turning program at the local veterans-support organization called Clear Path for Veterans. The pens were turned and kept by the veterans themselves as a direct donation.  In 2022, the club received 350 kits to support the 2022 effort produced our largest contribution to date - 417 pens! This brought our 9-year contribution to 2500 pens. Our donation for 2023 was 414 pens with 40 of those pens going directly to Kuwait based on the letter right that was received before we shipped our completed pens to Woodcraft.
For 2024, our members are starting early and hope to contribute over 500 pens this year. Woodcraft donated 414 component kits and the club purchased another 60 kits with a $100 donation by a member, a former service member himself. One member started in February, turning pens during the NYS Farm Show and during MakerFaire 2024. Another member completed 100 pens by the end of May.
Below are photos of pens generated by members for the 2024 effort. As new photos arrive, they will be added to this page.
Photos of pens created since 2018 can be found by clicking each year's link: 2023   2022   2021 2020 2019 2018

YEAR	Members Participating	Number of Pens Donated
2014	23	170
2015	15	150
2016	19	185
2017	23	260
2018	25	300
2019	23	316
2020	26	379
2021	23	323*
2022	23	417
2023	24+	414**
2024	?	?? Expect at Least 524!
	*Total to Date After 11 Years*	2914

** Forty (40) pens out of the 414 were shipped directly to Kuwait for direct distribution to colleagues of a solider who received a pen previously.
* Ten (10) of our pens allocated for 2021 were donated to a turning program at Clear Path for Veterans where the veterans themselves turned the pens and then kept the pens rather than shipping back to Woodcraft. Also, two pens "blew out" during production.

Thanks to Woodcraft for their photos used to enhance this webpage

I was passed one of your hand-crafted pens on my recent deployment in Kuwait and was very delighted. I enjoy crafting many of my own things by hand and this pen has been one of my favorite items to have received on a deployment. Along with the pen I received a business card with these to emails and I wanted to first send a heart felt thank you to whom crafted the pen and ensure you know that your work is greatly enjoyed. I also would like to see how I could go about ordering a few more for my Soldiers currently here that I work with regularly. Can you please provide me the cost and estimated time it may take to ship? I would only need 40 pens to provide my section with one each. Please do not worry if this is not something you can do, I just felt it was worth asking and again thank you for what you did send, I will enjoy it as it reminds me of my shop and hand crafted projects.

Another Email Received by Ted from a gentleman name Zach:
I am a Sgt in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Liberty. I received one of your handcrafted pens this morning. It’s very nice and it’s a fantastic addition to my office space. Thank you for your past service and what you do.