emmy®extra July•August 2007 • more emmy®extra features
Giving Our Troops a Break
Project Hollywood Cares helps American military men and women grab a break from dangerous daily routines with DVDs and letters from home
By Libby Slate
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| Deployed military personnel may request care packages from Project Hollywood Cares online at projecthollywoodcares.org. |
When Tyler Borgwardt, a U.S. Navy 1st Class Petty Officer stationed in Iraq, received a package of DVDs and CDs from Project Hollywood Cares, he was invited to submit names of fellow service members who would also enjoy such a package.
Borgwardt did so, listing 19 company members – all of whom received packages, with no duplicate DVDs in the bunch, along with letters of support and Emmy® T-shirts.
[Deployed military personnel may request packages online at the Project Hollywood website, projecthollywoodcares.org.]
Wrote a grateful Borgwardt, “Thank you very much for the package. I just received it today. Everyone here definitely agreed that this has been the best package to date. I can't thank you enough.”
Giving military members a break from their dangerous daily routines—Borgwardt’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit diffuses and disposes of improvised explosive devices, booby traps and munitions—is just what Tom Fick had in mind when he created Project Hollywood Cares.
The non-profit sends “For Your Consideration” DVDs (screening copies of television programs and movies) and other entertainment items to help support troops.
Screeners Lead to Video Games,
Calling Cards and Much More
A longtime member of the Television Academy’s nonfiction peer group and a former naval lieutenant, Fick got the idea for the endeavor early in 2005, after an Academy committee meeting where he and another veteran had discussed both the screeners and the war in Iraq.
Having accumulated some 600 screeners of his own, Fick decided to ask other Academy members to donate their collections, as well as future screeners, to send to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On the advice of then-Academy president Todd Leavitt he formed a nonprofit corporation. Thanks to Fick’s passionate efforts, Project Hollywood Cares has since become an entertainment industry-wide, multi-faceted success.
Contributions Double,
Non-Profit Grows
“My nonfiction executive committee has been a big help,” says Fick, a producer who has worked on the Emmy Awards and four Olympics and who has taken on Project Hollywood Cares as a full-time volunteer.
“Through them I’ve gotten programs from A&E, PBS, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel.”
Contributions have more than doubled since the project’s early days, he notes, with non-screener television DVDs, movie DVDs, CDs and video games joining the screeners.
Besides numerous entertainment supporters, donations have included Girl Scout cookies, OPI cosmetics, Donald J. Pliner golf caps and Starbucks coffee; a telephone calling card is also often included.
Support letters may be written by college students, recruited in some cases through Fick’s connections as a former member of the Academy’s Educational Programs and Services committee.
“It’s peer to peer,” he explains. “A 19-year-old Santa Barbara City College or USC student will write to a 19-year-old marine corporal.”
On the Move: Fick's Apartment to CBS Studios
At first operating out of Fick’s apartment, Project Hollywood Cares now has donated space, computers, furniture and phones at CBS Studio Center, along with 30 large shelving units which allow for alphabetical organization of the DVDs.
“That’s all through the help of [former Academy performer peer group governor] Conrad Bachmann and Alex Georgiev, vice president-controller at CBS Studio Center,” says an appreciative Fick.
Thank you very much for the package. I just received it today. Everyone here definitely agreed that this has been the best package to date. I can't thank you enough...
Tyler Borgwardt
U.S. Navy 1st Class Petty Officer
Stationed in Iraq
|
“We have access to a wireless computer network, and we got a [monetary] donation for shipping before Christmas.”
45 Pounds of Programs and
the "Library Effect"
Packages are sent to servicemen and women on the ground as individuals, with specific DVD requests filled if possible. Ships receive them for the entire command; one recent order consisted of 45 pounds of boxes.
The invitation to recipients to suggest other recipients has created what Fick calls “the library effect. The military way is to share,” he says proudly.
“Now they have a full library and a great morale booster," he explains. "Many of the women had never seen Lifetime. And one recipient said, ‘I’d never seen Dancing with the Stars. Now I have.’”
Jamie Farr, Women In Film, Others Help
Fick to Keep the Care Packages Coming
Fick has also visited ships himself to make donations – last July 4, he was accompanied by Jamie Farr to the U.S.S. Los Angeles – and has delivered packages to wounded service members in military hospitals and gift boxes to the families of those killed in action.
Volunteers are always welcome to assemble packages at CBS Studio Center and perform other tasks; members of the Television Academy, Women in Film and Actors Network are among those who have helped out.
Fick would like to start a capital fundraising campaign “to make this company grow,” he says.
“The first thing I’d do is pay someone to come in two days a week to help me.
“This is a lot of hard work,” he acknowledges of Project Hollywood Cares. “But it’s a passion.” •
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