“Every soldier I spoke with was excited about the tournament,” Capt.
Nick Amico, with the 779th, said. “Knowledge that friends, family, neighbors, and even people we have yet to meet are thinking of us during the deployment is highly encouraging for the soldiers.” “He was psyched,” Michelle Condo, wife of Sgt. 1st Class John Condo, said of her husband when she told him about the event. Condo played on the Tallahassee Democrat team.
When Kristen Eckel, whose brother, Staff Sgt. Kurt Eckel, is a member of the Tallahassee-based 779th, decided to gather items to send to the troops, she never expected this type of community gathering. Eckel shared her idea with the right people, Corinne Rubin and Greg Tish of the charity group Party4purpose. Within a span of two weeks the small donation drive turned into Kicking it for the Troops.