A student who began corresponding with a soldier during the 1999 conflict in Kosovo has brought her longtime passion to the Northwestern community by beginning a letter-writing drive to members of the armed forces stationed in the Middle East.

At 14, Jennifer Kaifesh wrote a letter to “any soldier” in Kosovo, hoping to obtain material for a war story. She received a response from Army Sgt. Mario Perez and the exchange turned into an ongoing friendship, in which Kaifesh helped Perez woo his future wife and Perez attended Kaifesh’s high school graduation.

“He’s become like the brother I never had,” said Kaifesh, a Weinberg senior.

When Perez was shipped to Kuwait the day before the birthday of his twin children, Kaifesh attended the chapter meeting at her sorority upset about his situation and decided to organize a campaign of support for her friend and his troops. Perez, is in charge of 30 soldiers now stationed in Iraq.

Kaifesh and Communication sophomore Courtney Dunn asked Kappa Alpha Theta sorority members and Willard Residential College residents to write letters to the troops, and they compiled care packages to ship to Perez’ unit. The students collected about 40 letters varying from five-pages with people “telling their life stories” to a Chicago postcard with a quote on it, Dunn said.

“We’re worlds apart, but through these letters you can really be connected,” Dunn said. “You can only send packages the size of shoeboxes, so we sent six shoeboxes of everything from razors and shaving gel to peanuts and magazines.”

Kaifesh said she corresponds regularly with Perez’s wife and expects Perez to receive the packages sometime next week, but mail has been taking about a month to get to the area. Many students gave their return addresses in hopes of starting an individual pen-pal relationship.

Dunn, who now clips articles about troops’ needs, said she was uneducated about the war when Kaifesh first broached the topic.

“My mom kind of helped me realize it doesn’t matter whether you’re pro-war or antiwar,” Dunn said. “I suddenly realized there are people over there who are our age.”

Kaifesh agreed that supporting the troops does not equate to condoning the war. She encourages participants to write from their hearts.

“I know a lot of people in the the house who were very antiwar that still showed support,” she said.

Pleased with the positive response from her peers, Kaifesh said she and Dunn plan to talk to the philanthropy chairs of other sororities and fraternities about supporting the project financially and through additional letters and packages. Kaifesh said any interested students can contact her for more information.

Similar programs are forming nationwide, including on the Army’s Web site, goarmy.com. Weinberg freshman Bri Billie is participating in a pen-pal program through America Online but said she would be interested in getting involved in a campuswide initiative.

“When you do it as a big group,” Billie said, “it makes an impact rather than a bunch of scattered people.”